Still I Rise
by Objessions
Summary: I love a big project. And I've been missing the bromance. Missing the guys. So, I'm going back to the beginning. Missing scenes, expansions, extras ... Whump. I'm starting with The Rising. Because why not? This is rated T because this is a story about adults with dangerous jobs and love lives. So language and whatnot. I own nothing. I'm just here for fun. Mac and Jack are back!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N ~ If you've been around me much at all here on ffn, you'll know it's a tradition for me to write a fic with Jack prominently featured for Gib on her birthday. This year, she's also finally going to stop running into burning buildings and giving her friends grey hair. At least in any kind of official capacity. So, instead of a one shot birthday fic, I've decided to go back to the beginning. I'm going to dive in to every episode. Starting here. With The Rising. _

_Jack's back._

_Happy birthday, and beyond._

_**Still I Rise**_

Mac pulled up outside the palazzo. He was glad the team had needed to split up to get here. He could hide what was going on in his head over the comms. But in person Jack would have called him out by now. He felt legitimately a little nervous. Thornton didn't often take a team when she did missions. The fact that she had tonight would very much be a feather in the cap of his team. Well, if everything went according to plan.

He took a deep breath and pulled on his game face. If the plan went to Hell, he'd figure something out. That's what he did. That was probably why Thornton had tapped his team anyway. They had a reputation for making it up as they went along and pulling missions back from the brink. Considering he was one of the youngest agents in the history of DXS, he didn't mind.

He squared his shoulders and got out of the car. He looked around. They'd maintained radio silence since he'd had to pass through a number of security checkpoints that were scanning for surveillance tech. Now, after a quick assessment, he figured it was safe to get back in touch with the team.

He'd met Nikki quite a while ago. And they'd certainly attempted to start a relationship a number of times. But they hadn't really gotten serious until after Cairo. It was quite a novelty to have a girlfriend who was cleared for every piece of information about his job. He hadn't decided yet, if he liked having his girlfriend on his team. It blurred some lines, made it hard to focus on the mission sometimes. _Let's face it, Mac, she makes it hard to focus on much of anything. And you like that about her. _

He couldn't deny that was usually true. There's been a time in his life when asking out a beautiful girl had only ever happened on a lost bet and hadn't ended well. Nikki was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever known. And she clearly liked being in the field with him. She'd been very interested in his cover for tonight, asking Thornton very pointedly if she thought Alan Green should have a date.

Distracted from the mission for a moment again, Mac grinned and looked up. "So, how do I look?"

They flirted back and forth until Jack sighed audibly and pulled Mac's focus back to the mission, with a good-natured, "Guys, you know this is an open channel and I can hear you, right?"

Mac felt his face heating up. He had totally forgotten Jack was listening. Jack didn't say too much about Mac's relationship with Nikki. But he got the idea that his partner thought it was a bad idea. Jack had mentioned more than once, that he might have been a skinny science nerd once, but now he was a grown assed secret agent, who was more than a little cute in the face if the way the women they worked with were any indication. Mac didn't see it.

Still, he appreciated Jack getting his brain back on track. Jack sounded more nervous than Mac felt though, so he did his part to keep the mood relaxed. Mac didn't like catastrophizing. Jack had a tendency to do that sometimes.

"Relax," he smirked as he moved toward the door. "It can't be worse than Cairo."

Mac grinned a little as the banter between Nikki and Jack returned to that of colleagues rather than the slightly competitive edge for his attention it had sometimes. As he made his way into the party, his pre-mission nerves faded into the background. Jack had his six, and not only was Nikki an eagle eye on the mission with the satellite feed, once he put on his glasses, she'd be like having superpowers.

Thornton had gone ahead of them to do recognizance. Their intel had been extremely limited. They knew DXS needed boots on the ground here, but exactly what that was going to look like, none of them had been sure. When Thornton filled him in on where the suspected weapon was being held, it took more of an effort to keep his game face in place. He wanted to get through that heavily guarded door about as much as he'd actually wanted to chat about Cairo a few minutes ago.

Still, if things went really south, Jack was only about a minute away, Nikki was keeping eyes on everything and gathering intelligence on everyone at the party, and … _Hey, that's not a bad idea_ …

He ditched his jacket and slipped into the role of a waiter with practiced ease. He couldn't help his grin broadening a little when Nikki was impressed with his Italian. She'd agreed to go to Rome on a vacation together the next time they got some time off. If this mission was successful, Thornton had already agreed to a couple of weeks. Mac had some real motivation to make that happen. He was ready to talk about moving in together and Rome was just romantic enough to encourage her agreement.

His solenoid worked perfectly. And he slipped inside the now unguarded room.

Things went smoothly.

For a few minutes anyway.

Then things started to look more like he was used to. He became entirely focused on fooling the handprint scanner between him and his objective. He did flush a little when Nikki said, in complete seriousness, that she always watched his six. He was grateful that she didn't add she'd rather have a handful of it. Although, he would be more than okay with the topic coming up again once they were on the flight home and his partner was snoring on one of the couches.

Mac swallowed hard when he cracked the safe and found he was dealing with what was almost definitely a biological weapon. Jack was already low-key freaking out a little. He could hear it in his voice. If he was honest, Mac would have rather dealt with something nuclear, too. Bombs he understood. Bioweapons … not so much. He wasn't a biology guy. Even a all. Still, this one looked secure. And it appeared he'd already dealt with all the measures that might alert the host that his payoff was about to take a trip to Vienna. It's self-contained refrigeration was fully charged, too.

Unfortunately, when he lifted it … things went from kind of okay and improvising is all it would take to _well, shit_. The alarm started blaring. "Ooops."

"Oops like I just stubbed my toe, or oops I just started the zombie apocalypse?" Jack asked, checking his weapon and getting ready to run in and deal with either.

There wasn't any time to answer before Mac was running out of the building, dodging bullets. "Jack! Start the boat! Start the damned boat!"

_Just once I'd like a mission to go like it's supposed to. Instead of feeling like a scene out of Indiana Jones, _Mac thought as he leapt into the boat.

He was almost ready to mentally grasp victory when their escape derailed.

Jack swore under his breath. "I think we got a problem here, Mac. Check it out."

The engine sputtered and Mac could see the fuel gauge dropping rapidly. "They hit our fuel line!" Mac was no where near panicking. But for a minute, his brain couldn't come up with any solution other than getting caught. Well, getting shot. These goons didn't look like they cared about taking prisoners. Only getting back that canister.

Jack knew the look. So, he fell back on a strategy he'd first developed in Afghanistan. He opened his mouth and said something ridiculous. "So, break out the chewing gum."

Mac threw him a familiar look. Jack didn't grin but it was an effort. Even more than watching Mac's back, keeping him out of his own head was a job Jack took very seriously. Not that he could say that to Mac. The kid would just get defensive.

Mac's rolled his eyes and Jack knew his partner's brain was actually back on the problem. "It's gonna take more than chewing gum to fix it." He glanced back down at the fuel gauge. "We're gonna be out of fuel in about forty-five seconds." Mac looked around, not quite chewing his lip, then tried to pass the canister to Jack. "Here, hold this."

They both ducked as more gunfire rained around them. "No!" Jack snapped, shaking his head emphatically. He'd die for the kid if that's what the job called for. Hell, he very nearly had more than once. But Jack Dalton would be damned if he was gonna be patient zero in the goddamned zombie apocalypse. They'd had too many close calls with biological crap from right out of the gate as it was.

Mac looked momentarily furious. "This really is Cairo all over again."

"Hey, Cairo was your fault, man."

Mac's eyes shot daggers Jack's way. So maybe Cairo had been a little his fault, but if Jack hadn't been screwing around and acting like a twelve year old to begin with, he wouldn't have had to try something desperate. "Hold this and get out of my way."

Mac shoved the canister in Jack's hands.

"Ah!" he half protested. But Mac was already moving around with a determination that said a new plan was already under way. "Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast."

Mac didn't answer him, just kept working. Finally, he pulled off his tie and wound it around the boat's wheel. Then he killed the lights.

Mac just grabbed the canister. Jack couldn't even make out his face anymore, but asked, "Why are we going back?"

"We're not! Jump!" Mac gave him a light shove in the direction of the edge of the boat.

"What!?" He might have argued with the plan, but Mac had already flung himself into the black water.

Jack followed a second later. He gasped at the icy water. He'd have guessed it was maybe 45 or 50 degrees. A hell of a lot colder than the Pacific in spring and Jack already thought people who went to the beach this time of year were fairly nuts to begin with. Mac included. Although he noticed Mac hadn't done as much surfing since he and Nikki became a thing. He'd mentioned it once or twice, but Mac just brushed him off. Jack decided to just be glad the kid wasn't recreationally trying to catch pneumonia half the time.

"Come on!" Mac said, sounding pretty breathless himself.

They swam in the opposite direction of the boat as quickly as they could. Still, when it collided with the security guys a few seconds later, they had to dive down under the surface of the water to avoid the fireball and the raining debris. Jack was pretty sure there were some body parts coming down, but he tried not to think about it.

When they resurfaced, Jack treaded water, looking around the darkness at the many lights on the shoreline. "Where the hell are we?"

Mac stuffed the canister into his shirt so he'd have both arms to swim with. The water was freezing, so even wanting to get to exfil aside, the sooner they got to the van, the better. "No idea. Nikki?"

_Nothing._

Jack tried tapping his ear piece. "Nikki? Thornton?"

"They must've fried when we went under."

"Or when we jumped into this ice box."

He could hear Mac's grin. "Quit your whining. You're gonna need to air to keep up with me, old man."

Mac started swimming in the direction of one particular cluster of lights.

"You figured out where we are?" Jack asked, following with long sure stroked that pulled him even with Mac pretty quickly.

"Not really, but I think that's the bridge Nikki was planning on parking near."

"That looks about a mile away. We're gonna freeze our…"

"Like I said, save your breath. I'll race you."

Mac didn't wait for Jack to respond, just started pulling through the water with this almost silent efficiency only someone who'd spent a lot of time fighting currents in the ocean back home could possibly have.

"Call me old man, ya little shit," Jack grumbled, and determined to catch up.

Besides, swimming would not only get him to shore faster. Hopefully the work out would keep him warm.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time they reached shore, both Mac and Jack vowed, silently and to each other aloud, that they were never going swimming again. They stood on the rocky sand near the water trying to ring out their clothes a little.

"I'm ffff...freaking fffree...eezing."

"Yeah," Mac agreed, his teeth chattering now that the cool night air was hitting him, too. "Good. Thing. We … Have clothes … in the … van," Mac managed through his shivers.

"Can't wait to get bbb...back to LA," Jack said, only marginally more intelligibly.

"First stop, Vienna," Mac said, holding up the canister.

"Let's go, kid."

They took off at a steady clip, rehashing the mission already, knowing Thornton was going to play Monday morning quarterback no matter what. They liked to talk it through before hand. It was just another way they had each other's backs.

"Come on, Jack, let's hurry up. I'm freezing."

"I am too, kid."

Jack didn't think either of them could stand too much time cold and wet like this without regretting it. And Mac had like zero body fat. Well, realistically not zero. But not a lot. And it wasn't like the kid didn't eat. When he thought about it, Mac ate like a teenage football player. Just … getting him to think about it was sometimes a challenge. That and he ran half marathons. Like for fun.

One thing all that running was apparently good for was not getting winded even after you'd swam over a mile in freezing water and had to practically climb a cliff to get to your van. Mac didn't even slow down until he realized Jack wasn't right beside him.

"You okay, Jack?" he asked as he stopped and gave his partner a hand up a gravelly section of hill he'd already scaled more through speed than skill.

"Yeah," Jack puffed. "Just don't have legs like a gazelle."

Mac smirked. "Keep telling you you should run with me."

"I run!" he said defensively.

"On the treadmill."

"That's still runnin'."

Mac snickered. "Basic must've been Hell for you, seriously."

"That's the thing, Mr. Gazelle. We ain't in the Army anymore and I don't see any reason to run every morning like you're in trouble. You'd think you were still in the Army, the way you kick your own ass every morning. I somehow think you must've loved it."

Mac shrugged as they finally made it to the paved road. "There's the van," he pointed to parking lights, just visible in the distance. "I'll be honest, the running was the only part I liked. I always liked to run."

"You were good at all of it," Jack observed.

"Sure." Mac shrugged again. Then he grinned. "Including getting the best of you, old man," he teased.

"You wish," Jack laughed, taking a playful swing at his partner.

Mac danced out of his way. "And here I thought you _didn't _want to start the zombie apocalypse." Mac waved the canister at Jack, laughing at Jack's immediate look of horror.

"Shit! I forgot all about that!"

Mac laughed. "Oh, man, I wish you could see your face."

"Not funny, there, Angus!"

"False." He laughed again. "Nikki'll think it's funny."

"As funny as you using a drink tray as body armor?" Jack asked with a raise of his eyebrows.

"You think stuff like that'll get me in trouble with her, but actually…" He trailed off.

"Actually, what?" Jack smirked.

Suddenly Mac didn't feel as cold. He hated how easily he blushed. But at least he felt a little warmer.

"Nothing. Forget it."

"You mean she thinks it's hot." Jack chucked. "Is that what's doubled your crazy assed reckless streak lately?"

"Shut up, Jack," Mac said, giving Jack shove, knowing he wouldn't get shoved in return now with the glowing biohazard in his hand.

"Oh, ima tell her and ima tell her you did it to try to get some."

Mac grinned as they approached the van. "That's not gonna discourage her." He laughed. But he decided he wanted to get ahead of Jack anyway. "Nikki!"

When she didn't answer, despite the doors of the van being open, he said more questioningly, "Nikki?" Still nothing. "Nikki?"

Then he froze.

Nikki was right in front of them. But so was someone else. And that someone was holding her by her neck, and had a gun to her head. Tears ran down her face.

Mac didn't think it was possible to be much colder than he already felt, but seeing her like that turned his blood to ice water.

She choked out. "I'm sorry. I…"

The man choked her off. "The canister, please."

Mac saw Jack positioning himself to try to get the upper hand out of the corner of his eye. He managed to keep his voice completely level. "You let her go."

The man's cool blue eyes looked almost amused. "That's not how these exchanges work, Mr. MacGyver." The man gestured toward Mac. "You hand over the canister, and I will let your friend live."

Jack took a step toward them, thinking I he changed his angle a little, he might be able to get a shot around Nikki. "Don't do it, Mac."

The man pulled Nikki against him roughly, choking her to the point of gasping and coughing. Mac's eyes widened. The man raised an eyebrow. "Give it to me, and nobody else will get hurt."

Mac held the canister out in front of him. "Maybe I drop this right now, we all die."

His voice said he'd do it, but something in his face must've given him away. The man smirked at him. "You won't kill her, but I will."

One of the man's henchmen cracked Jack across the back of the head and Mac's one real hope of taking this guy out dropped heavily to the pavement.

Nikki's eyes widened and her lip quivered but she bit out, "Don't give it to him, Mac."

The man drove the gun into her, hard. She cried out.

"You son of a bitch!" Mac growled. But he felt a thread of panic. There was no way out of this. He swallowed hard.

The man was getting impatient. Finally, he simply demanded the canister. Then he said with icy certainty, "I will not ask you again.

Feeling like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff, Mac passed the man the canister. At least if he could get his team out of here alive, they could chase this guy down."

The man gave him a tight smile. "Thank you."

He shoved Nikki away from him, and before Mac could even react, he pulled the trigger and the deafening shot rang out.

Nikki disappeared over the edge of the bridge and Mac acted purely on reflex reaching out, screaming, "No!"

There was another explosive pop, and Mac felt like a truck hit him. He was falling, falling. He crashed into a wall of ice. Then, nothing.

Jack groaned. A lightning bolt lanced through his head. It took a minute to get on top of the pain. A few deep breaths and memories of how he got onto the ground started surfacing.

He slowly opened his eyes, hoping he was where he remembered falling and not being held prisoner somewhere.

The van's headlights were still on and he could see the faint glow of equipment, but it didn't seem anyone else was around. "Mac?" he called softly.

He was answered only by the distant sounds of a few party boats and traffic, and the somewhat closer sound of the waters of Lake Como lapping against the shore.

He tried again. "Mac? Nikki?"

When he got no answer again, his stomach knotted into a tight ball of fear. He started scrambling to his feet, but was struck by a wave of dizziness and nausea that dropped him promptly back onto the pavement. It also told him he probably had a pretty breathtaking concussion.

"Mac!" he called loudly, this time getting to his feet more slowly.

When Mac still didn't answer, cold fear tightened its band around him, now including his throat. His main gun was gone, so he grabbed his back up piece out of his ankle holster and moved toward the van.

It quickly became clear that he was alone. "Mac!?" he shouted loudly, not really expecting, and not getting an answer.

He climbed into the van and picked up the headset he knew was connected to HQ. "Patty?" he tried, hoping like Hell this wasn't as fried as his earpiece had been.

"Dalton? What's going on?" the familiar voice asked sharply, and a shade less calmly than he was used to.

Jack rapidly ran down everything he remembered.

"Something is jamming our satellite view," Thornton said, frustration clear. "I'm calling for an extraction. We have interorganizational assets in the area."

"Mac isn't…"

"They'll be there in ten minutes Jack. Your job just became getting out of Italy before their intelligence services pick you up. I'll send a crew to look for Mac and Nikki."

"I'm not leavin' here without them! They're my team. I'm Mac's Overwatch, and…"

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before he disappeared from under your nose, Dalton," she snapped.

Jack tore off the headset and leapt out of the van. He paced around outside of it, running his hands through his short hair. "Goddamnit!" he more or less shouted. She was right of course. He'd been so focused on the guy he could see with a gun, he'd left himself wide open.

He took a ragged breath. Ten minutes. Okay, Dalton. That's not much, but it's not nothin'. Jack started to scan the scene more carefully. As he slowed himself down, the throbbing headache became a little easier to deal with. He squinted at the bridge. _Blood._

He covered the ground quickly and looked over the edge.

The light was low, even with the headlights from the van still on, but Mac's white shirt stood out starkly against the dark water. He was floating face down. "Nonononono," Jack said, not even realizing he was speaking aloud. His first impulse was to just jump right in and fish out his motionless partner. "Mac!" he shouted.

The figure in the water jerked, and his head came up. Jack heard his gasp for breath. "Mac!" he shouted again.

Over the sound of the water, he heard a feeble reply, "Jack."

Jack kicked his boots off. "I'm comin' kid."

Mac flipped over with some effort and cried out in pain. Jack didn't need more light to see the front of Mac's shirt was stained bright red. "Shit … Hang on Mac!"

Jack ran back over to the van and picked up the headset again. Thornton was still there. "Dalton. Dalton, respond! Dalton, do you copy?"

"Patty," he started.

"Dalton, you need…"

"Patty, I ain't got time for you to chew me a new one. I found Mac. He's in the water and it looks like he's hit. So I'd take it as a great kindness if you'd make sure there's some help on the way with that extraction. I'm goin' in."

"Dalton!"

Jack tossed the headset again. He ran the short distance to the edge of the bridge and went right over.

He splashed down about ten feet from Mac. He took a quick look around. Nikki definitely wasn't in the water, too. A few quick strokes had him at Mac's side. Mac was just floating there on his back. "Come on Mac, don't be dead."

"I'm not dead. I'm trying to minimize blood loss," he said softly, then coughed. "Ow, hell."

"There's an extraction on the way, kid. Now, let's get you…"

"Nikki," he said weakly. "Is Nikki…?"

"I don't see her anywhere, bud," Jack said, treading water and trying to decide how best to get a hold on his friend without making his pain any worse than he had to.

"She," he started and then started coughing again. "Ah," he gasped like it was a twisted ankle and not a gsw to the chest, Jack thought. "She has to be. He shot her, Jack," he said urgently. Mac seemed to forget he was trying to minimize blood loss and shifted trying to look around. She went in the water right before me … He shot her," he said again, more breathlessly.

Finally, Jack was able to get an arm under him. "We'll find her, Mac. Okay?"

"We have to," he tried again, but this time it was damn near a sob to Jack's trained ear.

"Let's get you out of the water before you freeze, okay?"

"Cold is good," he managed. "Slows heart rate, reduces the need for oxygen."

"Okay, kid, but let's get you closer to shore anyway."

"I … okay," he said, and it was almost a sigh. He moaned when Jack changed his hold on him. "Bullet's still in there," he gasped.

The fact that when Mac coughed there hadn't been blood was good. But the bullet still rattling around in there was not.

Jack was trying to be insanely careful moving them through the water, but Mac coughed again and Jack lost his hold. Mac dropped below the water and Jack grabbed at him in a moment of near panic.

He pulled Mac back up, but he'd grabbed the shoulder near the bullet wound. Mac yelped, and then his head dropped. "Mac?"

No answer this time. Jack's hands were so cold now, he couldn't feel Mac's pulse. He did his best to get them to the nearby shore with the least amount of jostling possible. He placed Mac on the ground and put a hand in the middle of his chest. He could feel the rise and fall of his partner's breath.

He thought he could hear some sort of vehicle crunching to a stop above them. Jack could hear voices now, and he hoped like Hell it was whoever offered aid to Thornton, but right now, he'd take what he could get.

"Hey! Down here!"

A head appeared and a flashlight struck Jack in the eyes. "You Dalton?"

"Yeah. My partner's been shot."

"Stay put. We'll come to you."

Jack sat shivering on the ground next to Mac, hand resting on Mac's chest so he could continue to assure himself that Mac was still breathing.

The blood soaking Mac's shirt was warm, telling Jack he was still bleeding heavily.

After what seemed like forever, their rescuers reached them, and absolved Jack of the responsibility of monitoring the young man, but not of his guilt that he'd been lying on the pavement while someone put a bullet in his partner's chest.


	3. Chapter 3

Mac didn't want to open his eyes.

He knew where he was.

Well, not exactly where, but he knew it was a hospital, from the sounds, from the stiff mattress and crinkly pillow. From the sound of Jack talking softly on his phone nearby.

He was sickly certain Nikki was dead.

If he opened his eyes, Jack was just going to confirm it for him. If he stayed like this, it didn't have to be true yet.

The thought itself was blunted, fuzzy around the edges. It was an unpleasant haze of pain medication, and probably a sedative, too, if his perception was even half accurate. He started rifling through his memories to orient himself, and avoid the inevitable contemplation of the hole in his life where Nikki belonged, to go along with the one in his chest, that ached dully even through whatever they were giving him.

He wouldn't let his mind go back to how he got there, but he remembered being in the water, remembered realizing he'd been shot. He also remembered thinking it was probably superficial because he could breathe on his own and his heart was still beating.

Then Jack was in the water, too. There was a blank space in his memory for awhile. Then, he thought maybe there'd been a helicopter. He remembered hurting, remembered it suddenly becoming hard to breathe, then more blackness. He could pick out some disjointed hospital stuff from a heavy cloud. Jack talking to him, but what he'd said Mac had no idea. Then this.

He wondered just where the hell he was. Then he wondered if maybe he was wrong about Nikki.

Part of him shied away from knowing. Then, almost predictably, his grandfather's voice chimed in, _You can't hide from the truth, Gus. Truth'll always find you. Whether you want it to or not. And if it has to chase you, it'll more than likely make you pay for the inconvenience._

Mac sighed.

That was enough of a cue to his partner that he was awake because he felt Jack's shadow fall over him. "Hey, kid. You back with me?"

"Mmm." His eyes really didn't want to open. But he made them. "Yeah."

The way Jack was looking at him, he knew. He felt his throat tightening, the lump forming there too much to swallow past. _No! _he growled at himself. Then he heard an unwelcome, but shockingly helpful at the moment, voice from his past. _Put it in a box. _

_Good idea._

He cleared his throat. He wasn't hoarse. That was an encouraging sign actually. If there'd been any kind of significant surgery, he would be. He also wasn't laying flat, so he guessed maybe some of the tightness in his chest wasn't just restrained emotion. "Where are we?" felt like a safe question.

Jack frowned at him, but it wasn't in irritation, rather concern. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down in it. "Switzerland."

Mac nodded, wincing when the movement hurt all down his left side. "How bad?"

"Well, the bullet missed all the most important stuff," Jack began. "It broke some ribs. Impact collapsed that lung on the way here, too, which ain't…"

"Is the canister gone?"

Jack's frown was taking up his whole face now. "Yeah. Yeah, it is, and…"

Mac interrupted again. "When can we get out of here?"

"You're gonna need to hold your horses, kid, and…"

"So Thornton can't just get us exfil? Because while I'm not going to disparage Swiss healthcare, there's no reason we can't be back at DXS. Then we could at least debrief and be part of…"

Jack put a hand on his arm. "Thornton doesn't want you under any more stress than you have to be, kid. And right now, transport would be stress and the pressure changes would be rough on your lungs. She'll get ya home when it's safe to move. And she's arranged all the time off you need."

"I don't need…"

Jack suddenly looked like he might break down. "Mac, buddy…"

"Don't," Mac snapped suddenly. "Just don't."

"I'm so sorry, Mac."

Mac's eyes hadn't gotten the memo from his brain about putting all this in a box and they filled, then spilled over. "I said, don't."

Jack quickly dragged a hand over his own eyes. "Okay. Okay, kid. Whatever you need."

Now that it was out there though, it was like a dam had burst. "Did they …" His breath hitched, but he made himself keep going. "Did they find her?"

One of Jack's hands wrapped around his and the other squeezed his good shoulder. "No."

The idea of a funeral with an empty casket was … he couldn't … There hadn't been enough of a body to bury when Al died either. _All your fault._ He wanted to deny it, but his brain just kept throwing irrefutable facts at him. About Alfred Pena. About Nikki. Hell, about his mother. And the only conclusion it could come to at the moment was that one way or another, he'd been at least partly responsible for all of them.

"Are they even looking? Or is Thornton more interested in the canister?" Angry with DXS was easier than sad all of a sudden. Because if this was his fault, it was Thornton's, too.

"They're looking."

Mac's eyes narrowed. "Why aren't _you_ looking?"

Jack couldn't make himself explain that he'd been benched with a concussion, and also that he'd been afraid to do much as let Mac out of his sight since fishing him out of the drink in Italy. Despite world tilting dizziness and a damn near blinding headache, he'd paced outside the surgical suite while they'd removed the bullet, which was thankfully lodged between Mac's ribs rather than tearing around in his chest cavity. If Mac wanted to blame him, that was okay with Jack. Because he one hundred percent blamed himself.

He tried to keep all that off his face, but he clearly wasn't successful. Mac half started to sit up. "Ah, hell," he gasped. A shaky hand covered his eyes as he collapsed back onto the pillow. "I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean…"

"It's okay, kid. I … I'd go if you wanted me to, but I've..."

"Been sitting here all night?"

"Maybe."

Mac took a couple of careful breaths and moved his hand away from his face so he could meet Jack's eyes. "You okay?" Mac asked, realizing that he hadn't before.

Jack shrugged. "Got a pretty good bump on the noggin. Little hypothermia maybe."

"Maybe? It was freaking freezing."

Mac's effort to move away from the more difficult topic of Nikki and the rest of the failed mission fell a little flat, but it was enough for both of them to pull back on their emotions a bit.

They passed a moment or two with a familiar joking bitching about their dip in the lake. Then Mac succumbed to another bout of coughing. The burning in his chest wasn't confined to just the bullet wound. It felt like his ribs were made of broken glass, and he was awake enough to notice another sharply aching spot in his side where they'd probably reinflated that collapsed lung Jack mentioned.

Jack was on his feet next to the bed, hitting the call button.

Mac wanted to tell him not to overreact and call in half the staff in the whole hospital. But it suddenly occurred to him that Nikki had been shot, too. That whatever pain he was feeling, she'd most assuredly felt. And then she'd gone down into the dark, freezing water. Alone.

The coughing turned into a ragged sob. When the nurse came in, Jack just told her that he was in a lot of pain. He hadn't contradicted him. She seemed to need some sort of confirmation from him.

He bit out, "Yeah. It hurts."

It wasn't a lie.

It just wasn't the sort of pain she meant.

She'd immediately injected something into his IV and he felt the fog settling back over his brain. Normally he'd have avoided that by any means necessary. Right now, he welcomed it.

He knew she fussed around him for a few minutes, and he fuzzily answered some questions. When the meds finally pulled him under completely, he thought maybe sleeping was just how he wanted to stay.

0-0-0

Over the rest of the next week and a half, Jack got more and more concerned. As Mac started to recover physically, he did worse and worse emotionally. Well, not in any way that anyone who didn't know Mac would have noticed.

In fact, the medical staff thought he was the perfect patient. He was quiet, but answered all their questions. He took any medication he was presented with. He ate whatever they put in front of him. He didn't ask when he could leave. Not once.

It scared the hell out of Jack.

This wasn't Mac.

This pleasant, compliant, pale young man, who seemed content to just stay in this Swiss hospital until he was old and grey, was a ghost.

And the less like himself Mac seemed, the guiltier Jack felt. He'd let the bad guys get the drop on him. Nikki was dead. There was no doubt about it in the minds of any of the DXS recovery team. And Mac was seriously injured. It could have been a hell of a lot worse, but it was still pretty damned bad. And he'd gotten himself a nasty case of pneumonia on top of everything.

Jack could barely look at Mac after the phone call with Bozer. Thornton has said she'd handle it, but Mac said no, Boze would be more suspicious if he didn't call.

He'd gotten his friend on the phone, tolerated Bozer freaking out about Mac not being home when he'd said he would be. Then he'd just told him quietly that there'd been an accident.

His voice was almost toneless. "I'm okay, Boze. I hurt my shoulder a little. But Nikki. She didn't make it."

The way Mac sounded like he was just reading a headline from an uninteresting article, it made Jack sick to his stomach.

"I'll be home in a couple days, Boze … I've gotta go."

Jack had taken the phone from him. "Mac, buddy…"

"Why don't you go back to your hotel, Jack? I need some sleep."

Jack had gone, but not before the barely concealed sobbing breath Mac buried in his pillow reached his ears.

0-0-0

The flight home had been quiet, too. The nurse from DXS that Thornton had sent to travel with them on the jet kept shooting Jack significant looks. When she'd brought him some medication mid flight, his tired eyes flicked to hers. "Thanks." And he swallowed the pills without any further comment.

She'd sat down next to Jack after that. "He's not okay."

"Yeah."

"So … why don't you do your partner thing and annoy him into being himself? It's kind of freaking me out."

"Believe me, I've tried."

"Have you? Because you don't seem okay either."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah. He said the same thing." But she let it go.

When they got to DXS, Mac was expecting a debrief, but instead Thornton just sent him to Medical so her people could confirm he was healing well. He'd shrugged and gone without any argument. The conclusion was that he was still fighting an infection and needed rest and continued medication before they could even talk about rehabbing his injuries.

Thornton has asked how long, and finally Mac's voice had some color in it. "A while. I'm going home. I'll let you know when I'm ready to come back."

Mac had walked out then. Jack had given Thornton a wide eyed glance and just followed Mac to the parking garage.

About half way to Mac's place, Jack finally mustered the courage to ask, "You planning on going back at all?"

Mac didn't turn from the window. "I don't know."

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

They pulled into Mac's driveway when Jack asked the question that was really bothering him. "Are we okay?"

Finally Mac looked at him. "I … yeah. Of course we are."

Mac looked like he meant it. He sounded like he meant it. But Jack couldn't accept that he meant it. To him, it sounded like another, "I don't know."

He went around and got the car door. Mac groaned as he shifted to get out of the car.

"Here, lemme help."

Mac needed to feel a little normal now that he was home. "I got it. My legs aren't broken," he smirked.

What Jack heard was that Mac didn't want him close. In his head, Mac booting him from his hospital room hadn't been about the young man's need to cry over his losses without an audience. It had been that Mac blamed him for Nikki's death. Mac's quiet hadn't been about his grief, it had been about not wanting to talk to the man who was responsible for his pain, physical and emotional. None of that was true, but Jack Dalton was really good at Irish Catholic guilt. "You sure?" Jack asked tentatively.

Mac gave him a funny look. "Yeah." He started to get out again, then gasped in pain. "Jack?"

Jack quickly leaned in and helped him up. Jack winced at Mac's hiss of pain as he stood.

"Thanks, man," he said when he finally got fully upright.

"I gotchu, kid," he said reflexively. Then the idea that he couldn't claim to have Mac's back hit him again. "Mac, I'm so sorry for…"

"Quit apologizing, Jack." He stopped. That was sharper than he'd meant to sound. "I just can't talk about … everything."

He'd missed the funeral by being in the hospital and Mac was entertaining some guilt himself. He'd normally have just annoyed the staff until they practically thrown him out. Or he'd have just left against medical advice and been there. But he hadn't been able to face it.

"Okay," Jack said colorlessly. "Want a hand up the steps?"

He didn't. But Jack was clearly struggling with something. Mac didn't want to talk about it, so he thought maybe letting Jack help would help Jack. Or something. "Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great."

He let Jack help him inside. Even let him help him as far as his room. Jack read it as things just being different between them. Broken.

"I'm gonna get changed and crash, I think."

"Okay, kid. Holler if you need anything."

Mac's brow creased. Jack looked exhausted. And Mac knew he felt guilty about Nikki's death, even though that was ridiculous. "Maybe you should take off. Get some sleep yourself, pal."

Jack froze for just a second. "Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right, pal."

Jack left Mac to get changed, closing the door behind him. Bozer came in just as he was getting ready to leave. _Shit._

Bozer rapid fired questions at Jack. About the business trip. About the accident.

Jack listlessly related their cover story. Bozer knocked on Mac's door, very much wanting to hug his hurt and grieving best friend. Mac didn't answer. Bozer cracked open the door. Mac was already passed out, his face pale against the pillow. Bozer closed the door.

"He looks awful."

Jack nodded. "Yeah. He does." Jack sighed "Being in the front of a car in a head on crash will do that to a guy."

Bozer glared at Jack. "And where were you?"

Jack shook his head. "In the back seat. I should've been driving. Should have been paying attention. But I wasn't."

Bozer's expression softened a fraction. "You get hurt, too?"

Jack shrugged. "Concussion. I'm good now."

"Mac really gonna be okay?" He eyed the firmly closed bedroom door.

Jack swallowed hard. It was hard not to just tell Bozer the whole truth right now. Mac was a long way from okay. But, he'd failed at his job of keeping his team safe. He wasn't going to fail at maintaining their cover, too. "It's just his shoulder, Boze. Busted up his ribs a little. It was a bad wreck, but … The docs fixed him up real good. He'll be alright." He sighed. "Physically, anyway."

Bozer frowned at the door again. "Did he at least get to say goodbye to her?"

Jack shook his head. "It was pretty much instant. And he missed the funeral"

"You gonna stay and help me keep an eye on him?"

Jack shook his head, a hollow feeling settling into his chest. "Nah, Boze. I think he needs some space."

Jack left, getting his phone out of his pocket, and dialed Patricia Thornton.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note - I read a while back that in the original version of The Rising, after Lake Como Jack bailed and Mac had to go get him to come back to DXS. I've had so much fun playing with other stuff they never aired, I decided to play with that here. I also tapped in my OC Elliot to help me bridge the gap. Don't worry though. The guys will be back together soon. Hope you enjoy ~ J_

"Hey, Jack. It's me. Again. Give me a call, okay?"

He was about to end the call, but couldn't just let it go at that.

"Thornton said you resigned. And now I can't get you on the phone. I'm … just call me."

He thumbed the End button and tossed his phone aside on the bed. He sighed. Then he flopped over on the mattress. "Ow," he grumbled to the empty room.

He was already going a little stir crazy, and now combined with Jack's strange ghosting, he was ready to climb the walls. Fortunately Bozer was at work this afternoon, so he didn't have the added wrinkle of his friend fussing over him incessantly, talking a blue streak, and mentioning Jack's conspicuous absence on an endless loop. Say nothing about his concerted effort to see to it that his suddenly sedentary best friend gained thirty pounds of pure carbs.

At first, Jack stopped by every day. He didn't stay long, which was unusual, but he'd made reasonable excuses like having to go to DXS to get through the debrief, and a few times even a headache from the knock he'd taken in Italy.

Then after about a week, it dropped off to him just calling. Then it was just texting. Mac hadn't made much of it, mostly because his respiratory infection flared back up and he'd been pretty miserable. He'd slept most of the day for the better part of the week.

Now, in the third week since coming home, it had been three days since he'd had so much as a text from Jack. When he'd gone to DXS this morning, just to hit the infirmary to make sure his lungs were now clear, Thornton told him Jack resigned. She hadn't even waited for him to register the shock before she started nudging him about coming back to work, "On at least a limited basis until you can start physical therapy. Crisis counseling could do you a world of good right now, Mac, and we have people available..."

The fact that she'd shown up at DXS Medical to play twenty questions got under his skin. He'd told her again, very firmly, he needed some time. He wasn't interested in talking with a counselor, either. He'd do the mandatory psych eval when he applied for clearance. He'd let her know when he was ready to do that.

She'd gotten ruffled and said his return should be on the DXS doctor's timeline and that she and the doctor agreed counseling should be part of his treatment plan and would help them establish that timeline. Mac said until he was ready to deal with DXS again, he'd use his own doctor. Then he left.

He'd tried to call Jack about ten times. So far no luck. He was tempted to just go over to Jack's place, but if Boze found out he'd driven himself, there'd be Hell to pay. Boze had dropped him off this morning at the "think tank" and Mac had gotten an Uber home. Because he was still supposed to be immobilizing that side. He could always get another rideshare, but he just wasn't sure enough of his emotions at the moment that he really wanted to ride all the way across town and back with a stranger.

The doorbell rang and Mac struggled to get up, pulling on the sling he was supposed to be wearing all the time so as not to jostle those ribs or the bullet wound. He was half hoping it was Jack, although he knew who to expect based on the time and the call he'd made in the car on his way back here.

He opened the door and greeted the tall man on his steps. "Hey, Elliot. Good to see you."

Elliot shook his head, smirking. "Good to see some things never change."

"Huh?" Mac asked as he let Elliot inside and closed the door behind them.

"Your sling is all twisted, which I can only assume means you pulled it on in a hurry when I rang the bell."

"Um…"

"That's what I thought."

"I was laying down."

"Sure. And I like living patients who bullshit me. I just work as an ME because I like the hours."

Mac chuckled as he led the way to the living room. "I'm not calling you away from any interesting corpses by asking for a favor, am I, Dr. Mathers?"

Elliot sat in one of the comfortable chairs off to the side of the coffee table, largely so he could observe how Mac was moving. "Just the usual. I'm working my notice anyway."

"You're leaving the crime lab?" Mac asked, sitting against carefully arranged cushions and throw pillows on the sofa.

"Miles didn't tell you?"

"We talked the other day, but mostly he was checking up on me and giving me the third degree about catching a bullet. And asking if I was gonna make it out his way for the wedding."

"Are you?"

"Of course! I'm not gonna miss Eggs' wedding. He wants me to stand up with him."

Elliot nodded. He'd wondered if Miles would ask, knowing what Mac had lost in Italy. Mac looked so pleased, he was glad Miles had gone through with it.

"I don't suppose it surprises you much that it was a cover. One I no longer need. Time for a change. We're going to be working together. Officially. Instead of just bailing you out on the down low."

Mac looked genuinely curious. "For the Agency?" Then he quickly added, "It's okay if you can't say."

Elliot smirked again. "Not for the Agency. But that's Miles' tale to tell."

"Knowing both of you, I can't wait to hear it."

"I hope I'm there for the telling."

Elliot paused. Mac wasn't much for small talk. Usually. Perhaps he wasn't getting right to the point about his injury and why he needed a favor because he felt like doing so would mean he'd have to rehash the circumstances surrounding it. Since most of Elliot's patients never talked at all, he didn't particularly feel that was important. Besides, Miles had already filled him in.

"So, much as I enjoy your company, I do have some of my other patients waiting back at the office." Mac shook his head but managed most of a smile. "I mean, they're on ice, but even they won't wait forever."

Mac cleared his throat. "Yeah. I'm sorry to bother you like this again, but…" He trailed off, frowning.

"I thought you were pretty solid with DXS these days. So I was a little surprised you called looking to borrow my services. You didn't up and quit again, did you?" He knew what was going on with Mac from Miles (in fact he'd known over a week ago when Miles called him about their friend), but he thought it would be better if he didn't own up to discussing Mac behind his back.

"I … Not exactly. I'm kind of taking a leave of absence."

Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Officially?"

Mac shifted uncomfortably, but Elliot sensed his injury wasn't the cause of it. "Not exactly."

Elliot stayed quiet. It was better to let Mac decide what to say, and how much. "I, uh, I had kind of a relapse. I mean … I had pneumonia when I left the hospital after…" He swallowed hard and ran his free hand through his hair. "After I got shot." He waited to see if Elliot would ask for more details about the how and the why, but he didn't. Mac relaxed fractionally. "And I thought I was doing okay. But I got a fever again and…"

"And your partner dragged your ass to the infirmary?" Elliot prompted when Mac trailed off again.

"No, I … I haven't seen Jack lately." He cleared his throat and winced just a little. He supposed he should take it as a good sign that things had improved enough that he forgot some things would still hurt. "I didn't want to wind up back in the hospital. I went in and got different antibiotics. And I've been taking them," he added almost defensively.

Elliot just continued to look interested. No Jack. Huh.

"I went back this morning, you know, just to make sure things are clearing up. And." He stopped and took a breath. He realized he was actually still kind of pissed off. "Thornton showed up. In the infirmary. Which would have been bad enough. But she just walked right into the exam room and started basically interrogating me about … everything."

"And?"

"And I decided to take a break. I told her I'd be back in when I was ready. She dragged the doc into the conversation, too. I told her I'd go to my own doctor instead of using the infirmary."

"Which you don't actually have."

"Hasn't come up." This time Mac flashed a grin and it looked reasonably genuine. "But I guess if you're working your notice, I better find one. Because I'm not walking back into DXS before I'm good and ready."

"I gave two months. Professional courtesy. Not that I don't think you should maybe avail yourself of the services of a doc who isn't tied to your job. But I think I can get you out the other side of this."

"You sure?"

"Wouldn't offer if I wasn't."

"I appreciate it."

Elliot sat back, arms folded, giving Mac a speculative look. "You're moving okay, considering. And you saw the DXS doc today. I get hedging your bets and wanting to make sure you've got somebody to keep an eye on your recovery absent trying to explain to some civilian in a white coat that you caught a bullet. Getting shot in the chest is a big deal, even without complications. And you had some, with the broken ribs, and your lung collapsing."

That was a lot more detail than Mac gave Elliot on the phone. He hadn't told Miles that much either. "How did you…?"

"Please. Like I wasn't going to find out what I was getting myself into before I came over here."

Mac frowned. "No, I get that. I was surprised that you didn't ask more questions. But I meant more like … actually how."

Elliot grinned. "I could say it's that I'm the American James Bond, but the truth is I got Viz to pull your records."

"Viz hacked DXS? Does Miles know his sister is going to wind up in Federal prison?" he asked incredulously.

"First of all, Miles knows exactly what Viz is up to. She's working for him these days. And second of all, she didn't hack DXS. She pulled your records from Switzerland."

"Stalkers," Mac said with a snort.

"As I was saying," Elliot continued. "You clearly don't need immediate medical attention. So…"

Mac hesitated. Why had he called Elliot today? It would have kept. He concluded he was just being careful. "I figured it'd be better to talk to you sooner rather than later. Especially after last week. I really thought I was doing okay, then wham, fever."

Elliot shook his head. "I'm not buying it."

"I … what do you mean?"

"We could have talked about it over the phone, set something up for next week maybe. You asked me to come over today. And I'm starting to think you don't even know why you did it."

Mac shrugged, clearly at something of a loss. "I don't…"

"You want to know what your partner is doing. And you don't want him to know you're looking. And you're in no shape to do your own spy thing without him catching on. You don't necessarily want Dr. Mathers. You're looking for Elliot the intelligence asset."

Mac looked a little sheepish. "I mean. I didn't really … Okay, I guess that honestly crossed my mind, too, but I wasn't gonna ask."

"Having a world class spook as a friend has a few perks. I'll find out what he's up to."

Mac relaxed more fully. "I'd really appreciate it. He … I don't think he's dealing with … stuff."

"Blaming himself for you getting tagged?"

Mac swallowed. "And other things." He frowned. "You already know about Nikki. Miles told you."

No point in denying it. "You're sharp, Mac." Elliot leaned forward, searching Mac's face. "How are you doing? With all that?"

Mac shrugged.

Elliot wasn't going to let him off the hook though. And he could spot a lie from twenty meters away. Mac knew that all too well from the last time Elliot has helped him out with an injury. He couldn't even fudge his pain level in a minor way without getting called out for it.

He sighed. "Not great. She … I was..." His voice caught. He took a slow deep breath. It hurt, but it was focusing. "I loved her, Elliot. I was thinking of … not like right away … asking her to …" He stopped again. It didn't need saying. "But I'm not blaming myself."

"You sure?"

Mac actually thought about it. "I am." He sighed again. "And I'm not blaming Jack. But I'm worried he thinks so. On top of blaming himself."

Elliot just looked at him for a long minute. Mac realized in the silence that what he'd said was true. He wasn't blaming himself. Or Jack. He just wanted to get back to normal and he wasn't sure how to do it.

Elliot read some of it in Mac's face. "Okay. I'll find out what's going on with him and swing by to give you a report. And since it was your flimsy cover story to get me over here, I'll be your fill-in bandaid again until you find somebody local or decide you're speaking to Thornton again. Sound alright with you?"

"Yeah. Yeah it does." Sometimes Mac had a hard time believing Elliot really wasn't good with living patients. He'd seen to the core of Mac's pain and figured out what he needed even though Mac hadn't been especially conscious of those needs himself. "Thanks, man."

"You're welcome. You do plan on being a halfway decent patient, right?" he teased, mostly looking for a reaction.

Mac rolled his eyes. "I called you, didn't I?"

It wasn't quite the good natured sheepish acknowledgement of his overly self-contained tendencies Elliot was looking for, but it was pretty close.

"I suppose you did."

Elliot got up to leave. He really did have a backlog to clear before he left town. Los Angeles wasn't the most peaceful city. "I'll drop in on Saturday. Unless anything comes up before then."

Mac followed him to the door. "You mean if Jack's in trouble."

He laughed lightly. "No, I mean if you start running a fever again or something, genius. You might not have actually wanted one when you called, but you've got yourself a doctor. And Miles would take it very personally if I let you go and die on me."

This time Mac's eyeroll and accompanying chuckle seemed very normal.

"Okay, but…"

"If Jack were really in trouble, what're the odds it wouldn't be on the news?"

Elliot was joking, but Mac was actually starting to get really worried. "You'll call me though? If he is in trouble?"

Elliot stopped and faced him fully. "I will. He's a hell of a guy to have watching your back. But I don't think he realizes sometimes someone needs to watch him."

"Exactly," Mac said with something like relief.

"Since Jack isn't here's to say so, I will." Elliot put on an Overwatch worthy expression. "Finish those meds DXS sent home with you."

"I don't half ass antibiotics, Elliot."

"Good. Get some rest, but not too much. Walking is okay; good even."

Mac nodded but didn't reply. He hadn't felt like doing much of anything. He was mildly irked that Elliot could obviously tell.

"Eat like a person and not a lab rat."

Mac managed a smile this time. "Bozer is making sure of that."

"Good." Elliot opened the door to leave. "And for pity's sake wear the damned sling like you're supposed to. At least until I figure out how to get some current xrays. I can probably use my buddy Kirk's machine."

"You've got an orthopedist friend who'll lend you his X-ray machine?"

Elliot laughed. "Not exactly. Kirk's a forensic anthropologist."

Mac sighed. "I really don't want to go hang out in one of your corpse labs for X-rays."

Elliot grinned. "My advice then? Don't get shot."

"Good advice," he replied wryly.

"I didn't fail to notice how you ignored me saying wear your damned sling."

Mac shook his head, but he smirked and he felt almost normal. "I'll do my best."

"Right," Elliot replied with a shake of his head as Mac closed the door.

But as he walked away, he was half smiling. Miles had been pretty worried about Mac when they'd spoken last week. In fact, if Mac hadn't called him today, he'd have found a reason to stop by.

For a random guy who'd gotten shot in the chest about a month ago, he looked pretty good. For Mac though? He was pale, and he didn't look like he'd been sleeping much. His grief shone out of his blue eyes like a spotlight. But, there'd been flashes of his usual self as they'd talked. And the slightly joking pushback about the sling had felt 100% normal.

The smirk he'd flashed had some real amusement behind it, and it had touched those devastated eyes for a second. He was healing. It would take some time. Miles said, and Elliot had known him for long enough to believe it was true, that Mac look losses deeply to heart. But he was a survivor.

Elliot got out his phone and dialed. "Hey ... He's doing okay. Not great but okay … He wants me to check up on Dalton … Says he hasn't been around, isn't answering his phone … Excellent. Tell Viz I'll owe her one … I'm headed back to the lab. Got a floater that isn't going to fingerprint herself."

0-0-0

Jack Dalton had the distinct impression that he was being watched. He'd felt like that a lot lately. Those guys getting the drop on him in Italy, because he'd made a goddamned rookie mistake and forgotten to "check six", had really gotten in his head.

He kept having hideous nightmares about it. He had some nasty bruises on his knees from falling out of bed from them. His therapist (not massage - and he was still weirdly grateful to Mac for not contradicting him when he'd said so) had some theories as to why his dreams had taken on a physical component. But he didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted it to stop.

His lack of sleep and the poor quality of what he was getting was making him angry and paranoid. Or at least he was willing to blame the sleep issues on that. Sissy had asked casually, in that infuriating way she had that always seemed to touch exactly the nerve that would set him off, if he could think of any other reasons for his anger or that might explain why he felt watched.

He'd gotten pissed and made it almost to the lobby before he got a handle on it. When he got back to her office she just asked if he'd rather finish their session with a walk in the park behind the building. He just nodded. Sitting with his back to her door had been making him edgy.

He'd walked away from the rest of their talk with a prescription he was familiar with. It didn't do much to you other than stop trauma dreams. But since the dreams were the only issue he was comfortable addressing, they'd start there.

He'd been pretty ragged when he'd shown up for his appointment anyway. He hadn't slept at all in the two nights since he'd hit the floor so hard he'd thought he broke something. Then Bozer had called him. He'd kind of lined Jack out for not being over to see Mac. And he'd said Mac was sick again. To hear Bozer tell it, Mac had barely been able to get out of bed and had been nearly impossible to get back to the doctor.

Jack hadn't been over because he didn't want Mac to see him limping around on his bruised knees or how he was so sleep deprived it looked like someone had decked him in both eyes, didn't want the kid to worry about him.

He scrolled through his recent texts. Mac hadn't mentioned not feeling well, had given Jack every indication he was doing okay. So okay that Jack almost called a couple of times just to see how the kid sounded, but every time he thought of talking to Mac, he just kept hearing his voice as he'd lay in his hospital bed in Switzerland looking paler than the gown he wore asking brokenly, "Did they find her?" Every time that replayed in Jack's head, he felt like he was going to break down. And he didn't want Mac to have to hear that.

Ultimately, he didn't call because he felt like he'd let Mac down. Sure, he felt real bad about Nikki. But, if he was honest, he only felt as bad as he did about it as he did because it hurt Mac. But a millimeter either way and Mac could have been dead. And to Jack that was unforgivable.

And now Mac hadn't been honest with him about how he was doing. Seemed to him that meant maybe Mac didn't want him around.

It didn't occur to Jack that Mac might have been surprised by his illness. Nor did Jack remind himself that Bozer often exaggerated when he was worried. He just used it as the shovel to dig himself a deeper guilt whole.

Then he'd had a run in with Thornton. She asked him to come back to work to help try to track the canister, or to go out on missions as personal security for another agent. If Jack got back to normal, perhaps Mac would be motivated to do so as well.

Jack had then turned over the form from Dr. Miller denying him psych clearance. From her expression she already knew he hadn't been cleared. She'd just wanted to push him into admitting it. Then she suggested gently that he wasn't cleared for field work, but perhaps he should take up his role as Overwatch again, since Mac was still a bit rocky. Jack has declined that too, and hightailed it out of her office for an appointment with Sissy, who'd known through her therapist's voodoo that he was fresh off a conflict.

The meds were helping with the dreams. But nothing else seemed to be better. The sense that he was being watched, followed, kept up. It had been made worse by Thornton "bumping into" him on several occasions. After the last time, at the liquor store of all the places, he'd quit. He wasn't interested in dealing with the pressure from her.

Besides he had a job offer. One of the guys from his high school football team was a producer. It was some crappy little start up. But they'd, What the hell had he said?, acquired a pilot they were excited about. And they needed a military consultant. He was also open to hiring Jack for some stunt work. Telling Jack he could use Colt Seavers as his stage name had sealed the deal.

Today, Jack was out for a walk. Well, less a walk and more an on foot mission to get a greasy egg sandwich from the place up the street from his apartment. He had a real bitch of a hangover, he was out of anything resembling real food. And he couldn't find his keys. When he'd finally reached a pleasant level of numb last night, he'd hidden his own keys. Usually if Jack had a lapse in substance related judgment, Mac was around. And Mac would always hide his keys, just in case drunk Jack brain decided it was a good idea to go out to buy more booze.

Problem was, Mac was always sober, well, sober enough to remember where the keys were the next day. Jack had no idea where Drunk Jack had hidden his keys. And if he was going to go to the … production planning meeting (or something like that) … he needed coffee and eggs. Mac had explained one time that eggs were like scientific hangover kryptonite. Jack couldn't remember why they helped, but his experience said that, as usual, Mac's ginormous science brain was right on the money.

Jack glanced over his shoulder again, wincing as the moon sunlight light splintered on the cars behind him and felt like it was stabbing directly into his bourbon soaked skull.

He could almost hear Mac throwing one of his favorite tv quotes at him. "Classic case of space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Ya hate to see it."

Almost like he'd summoned him, Mac called ack at almost exactly that moment. Jack let it go to voicemail for perhaps the fifteenth time this week. But, as he had every time, he immediately listened to the message.

Just checking in, pal. Hope you're doing okay. Then, blowing Jack's previous story that he didn't want Jack to know what was going on with him, Mac added, I've been having a hell of a time shaking this stupid infection. I've been in bed all day wishing I had a copy of Die Hard. Anyway … give me a call when you can.

Jack sighed, slipping his phone into his pocket. Unfortunately his reflexes and coordination were as hungover as the rest of him, and his phone dropped onto the sidewalk. He bent to retrieve it and when he stood up, a dark haired, slightly lanky, man that Jack had to look up at was standing in his way. It was such a surprise, it took a second for recognition to register. "Mathers."

Suddenly feeling watched made more sense.

"Dalton."

Elliot's greeting was reasonably friendly. Jack's wasn't.

"You been following me?"

Elliot started walking. In spite of himself, Jack fell into step beside him. Elliot finally answered. "I have been a little."

"I knew it," he growled. "Mac ask you to?"

"Last week he asked me to make sure you were okay."

"You've been following me for a week?" That explained a lot.

"Just this morning, Jack."

"Oh." Okay, that blew that idea.

"And before you decide to never speak to Mac again some more," Elliot gave him a look Jack didn't quite know how to interpret. "He had nothing to do with me coming out here to buy you breakfast to soak up some of the cheap bourbon that you're sweating out."

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Elliot just opened the door to the diner on the corner.

They got a table and ordered. Elliot just got an orange juice, but Jack ordered half the breakfast menu. Their conversation was fairly pleasant while the waitress was coming and going with their beverages and orders. Jack told Elliot about his job, pretended his hangover was an odd occurrence, and then got around to asking carefully, "So you've seen Mac?"

"I have. Unlike his partner."

Jack sighed. "I'm not his partner anymore. I quit DXS."

"Yeah. Thornton told him. Which you know because he's called you." Elliot gave him another significant look. "And since when has not working together stopped either of you from looking out for the other?"

Jack looked down into his coffee cup. "I didn't exactly do a great job looking out for him. He doesn't need me …"

"False." Elliot's expression became sharper. "The mission went tits up a long time before Mac or his girlfriend got shot. Inadequate intel, minimal resources, no backup exfil in place … Thornton screwed up. You guys were just stuck picking up the pieces. And Mac figured that out by the time you made it stateside."

"So … um … He's doin' alright?"

"He's had better days. Took a leave from DXS so I've been keeping an eye on him. I guess he won't be too pissed if I tell you, he's still fighting off an infection. He'll be okay. Think we've finally got it figured out. I've hooked him up with a colleague who's a much better doctor than I am."

"That's good, I guess." Still struggling with his injuries must be awful for the kid. It had to be keeping the incident in the forefront of his mind.

"He's hurting in other ways, Jack. Which you must know. He'd appreciate at least a phone call if you can't work on the courage to go see him right now."

"I don't know."

Elliot let Jack eat in silence for a few minutes.

The next time he caught the older man shooting him a furtive glance between bites, Elliot returned the gaze very seriously. "He doesn't seem to think you let anybody down. And while you're busy punishing yourself by drowning your sorrows and spending all your time alone in an increasingly trashed apartment, you're also punishing your best friend. Dumbass."

Jack sighed and took another drink off coffee. "What's it to you anyway?"

Elliot finished his juice. "I've known Mac long enough to count him a friend." He got out his wallet, counted out the check, and left a generous tip. "And until this morning when I got to hand him over to someone who's actually decent with the livening, he was my patient. And maybe him losing sleep over you and your radio silence isn't why he's still having a hard time with his recovery. But maybe it is." Elliot stood and gave him a very significant raise of his eyebrows. "It's not doing you any favors either, Dalton."

Jack frowned. "Maybe."

"Let him know you're okay. Let him know you still give a damn that he's okay."

"I …"

"He'll understand if you tell him you can't deal right now. He's Mac."

Jack nodded, just enough to be seen.

"Just call him."

Elliot didn't wait for Jack to say anything. He just left the diner and headed back to work.

Jack stared into his coffee for a few minutes.

Finally, he got out his phone and dialed.

"Hey, kid. How ya doin'?"


	5. Chapter 5

Bozer stopped on his way up the hall. The thinly concealed disappointment in Mac's voice was what drew him to a halt.

"No, don't worry about it. I know you're busy."

Then Bozer almost laughed.

"In the Valley? … Jack, please tell me you're not doing porn." Mac laughed at whatever Jack said. "Alright, man. Maybe this weekend. Later."

Bozer had to move quickly to hide the fact that he'd been eavesdropping.

Mac stepped out into the hallway to catch Boze practically sprinting toward the kitchen. Mac smiled and shook his head. He appreciated Bozer trying not to hover quite so visibly. But if he was honest, he also kind of appreciated his friend's almost constant presence. When he was alone, Mac thought too much, remembered too much.

He also thought he understood Bozer's lifelong tendency to try to stay close, to help. When Mac had met Jack for coffee a couple of weeks ago, he'd wanted to drag him to his Jeep and bring him home with him.

Jack had lost weight, was scruffier than Mac had ever seen him. And he was … hungover didn't cover it. Hungover indicated that someone was staying sober long enough to metabolize all the alcohol in their system.

Jack had said all the right things. He'd expressed concern over Mac closing himself off from DXS until his injury was healed. Mac had assured him that the doctor Elliot had hooked him up with was more than adequate. He'd fussed at Mac for looking too skinny. Mac had just smirked and said he'd actually put on almost ten pounds. Between Bozer feeding him every ten minutes and the physical therapist Dr. Michaels had sent him to being a big fan of weights, Mac was pretty sure he was in the best shape of his life. Jack had called bullshit a little because Mac had been absently massaging his chest while they were talking. Mac shrugged and admitted it still hurt some. That's why he hadn't rushed back to work. But otherwise he felt pretty good. Jack didn't call him out for maybe not going back because of losing Nikki. Mac had sort of acknowledged it by saying it's not like there was a team waiting on him to get cleared.

Then Mac had … gently, mind you … tried to turn the tables and express concern about Jack, asking in a somewhat roundabout way, if maybe Jack had left because he felt guilty. Jack suddenly "remembered" he was supposed to be on set. Mac teased him lightly about having 'gone Hollywood' and Jack had joked Mac ought to be thinking about a career change. They parted ways pleasantly. But Mac's worry just escalated after the meeting. Jack needed to see he hadn't seen really failed in Italy. He needed to see that he was still Jack.

Mac just couldn't figure out how to make it happen. So he kept doing what he'd always done, texting, calling, making sure Jack knew Mac cared, still valued him as a friend. And above all that Mac didn't blame him for any of it.

Speaking of, Mac took his phone out of his pocket and sent a text.

_I forgot to ask. Where you filming today? Thought I might finally take you up on the offer of seeing what going Hollywood really looks like._

He slid his phone back into his sweatshirt and caught up to Bozer at their breakfast bar. "Morning, Boze." Mac was certain Boze had no idea he'd caught him eavesdropping.

"Morning, Roomie!" Bozer said brightly. He was feeling a little smug that he hadn't gotten caught listening in, and he'd also just tried to stay upbeat for Mac. Mac said he was okay, but, Boze wasn't really buying it. Mac's nightmares got loud sometimes.

Bozer was already bustling around the kitchen. Mac refrained from rolling his eyes when his roommate got two packages of bacon out of the fridge and grabbed the waffle iron as well.

"Jack's not gonna make it to breakfast, Boze, so maybe slow down a little," he said grabbing a mug and pouring himself a coffee.

Forgetting he didn't want Mac to know he'd heard them talking, Bozer said, "I heard you tell him blowing you off was okay." Bozer looked momentarily grumpy. "This is for you! I swear you look skinnier this week! That PT of yours is working you too hard!"

Mac smirked and shook his head. "I'll have you know I've put on something like ten pounds since I've been home. And not all of it's muscle! You go ahead and waffle it up. Since Jack's not gonna make it, I'm gonna finally try going for a run this morning. Walking is getting boring and I'd like my jeans to keep fitting anyways."

"Are you supposed to running yet?" Boze asked almost severely.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I've been cleared for a minute … Just…"

"What is it?" Bozer asked, coming around the counter to stand next to Mac.

Mac shrugged. "I … Nikki and I used to run together a lot. It's … I just try not to think about her too much because …" His voice caught and he swallowed hard. "It's hard."

Unsurprisingly, Mac found himself wrapped in a bone crushing Bozer hug. He hugged back, but said, softening it with a chuckle, "Take it easy, pal. My ribs and my collar bone are finally pretty well healed. I'd kinda like em to stay that way."

Bozer released him, but still looked in his face, intent on figuring out if Mac was really okay to go out on a run. "If it's too hard, don't do it yet."

Mac offered a smile. "I'm good, Boze. Gotta push through it at some point."

Bozer frowned, "I guess." Then he grinned. "How about just a couple of waffles? Gotta carb load or whatever, right?"

Mac grinned and shook his head again. "They can be my reward for making it to the top."

"Alright, man."

Mac headed out for his first run since the morning he'd left for Italy.

It was two more weeks before he actually made it to the top.

He still ate Bozer's waffles.

0-0-0

He was going to it today, damn it. He was going to make it to the top. Come hell or high water.

Up until today, Mac had managed his runs without Nikki intruding on his thoughts. Well, mostly. The first couple of runs he'd felt like he couldn't breathe and that he might throw up so he hadn't gotten far. He told himself it was just his fitness had fallen off. He wouldn't acknowledge, even to himself that he'd really been overwhelmed by the lack of a running partner. He'd been so dedicated to that narrative that he'd even gone to see Dr. Michaels, who had assured him what was going on with him wasn't physical.

After that, he'd managed to push a little farther every day. So what if he'd wound up needing to stand deep breathing with his forehead against to cool tile in the shower just to keep his shit together a couple of times. Nobody but him in his post-run shower anymore anyway.

Today he needed to make the top. He needed to know he could do it without her. He still wasn't sure he wanted to go back to DXS. But he needed to know he could. He just needed to know he could face something familiar without Nikki first.

The run took a lot of guts. Images of their time together played through his head the whole time. But he did it. He made it. He took that hill, as his grandfather liked to say. But it took a lot out of him.

He'd avoided crying in the shower after his runs the last couple of weeks, but today he let himself have it. Bozer had left for work, Jack hadn't called him back. He was alone for the duration.

He felt a little better after letting some of his pent up anger and sadness out. As he sat in the living room afterward, not really doing much other than thinking, some of the memories that came back to him weren't of her death, weren't about guilt. They were warm, pleasant. He even let himself remember the day they'd finally gone beyond flirting and started turning their attraction into something real.

In a way, it made the pain worse. In other ways, it made him able to bear it. He was thinking about talking to Jack about that a little bit. He was also thinking of getting some cash out of the stash in the desk to get some takeout when Patricia Thornton walked in.

He wanted to be angry that she was so sure he would come back to work. But the footage of the scientists gasping their last, drowning in their own blood, precluded any of that. One of Mac's first serious victories for DXS had been to take down a guy trying to launch a biological attack. And that had been personal, too. This was a chance to avenge Nikki, to get something of his life back.

"Will you do it?" she asked, her expression uncertain.

He frowned for a moment.

"Mac, we need you."

"I'll do it." His face slipped into an almost smirk. "On one condition."

She smiled her knowing Cheshire Cat smile. "Which is?"

"Reinstate Jack."


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N - Happy premier eve all!_

Despite the relative earliness of the commute, traffic was brutal. The GPS said it should only take about forty minutes to get to the filming location Jack had given him. But it was almost an hour before Mac slid his Jeep into park.

He'd sort of thought Jack might be bullshitting him about this job, but it was pretty clearly a movie set. It looked to Mac like loosely organized chaos, which made sense given what Jack had told him about the company being a start up.

He wasn't sure exactly where to find Jack so he started walking around. He bumped into enough people who weren't watching where they were going that he was starting to feel legitimately awkward. He narrowly avoided getting run over by some random piece of camera equipment on wheels. Just as he'd dodged it he heard an explosion and caught a tower of flame out of the corner of his eye.

"And somehow, I think I just found Jack," he chuckled to himself. He took off in the direction of the smoke at a light jog, now more mindful of the fact that he had to watch where he was going and where everyone else was going, too.

When he rounded the corner of the building between him and what he hoped was a special effect, the first thing he noticed was Jack standing at the craft services table, chatting up a bottle blonde in a bikini. The rest of what he saw made him pick up his pace to go get Jack out of here.

"Mac! Buddy! What're you doin' here?" Jack called good naturedly when he caught sight of Mac approaching him.

Mac stood across the table from Jack, a supremely disappointed expression on his face. "You swore you weren't doing …" he dropped his voice and cast a furtive glance around. "Adult film," he finished in almost a whisper.

Jack broke into a spontaneous laugh and he had about a second to think that was the most normal he'd felt in months before he realized he needed to do some fast talking to stop Mac from leaping to any further conclusions. "Mac, why would I lie about that? Ain't nothin' wrong with…"

"If this isn't porn what's with all this?" Casting propriety to the winds, Mac waved at the strange scene around them.

"What, the tank? I told you this is a war movie!"

"Why's it on fire?"

"Duh. War movie."

"So if this is a war movie … why are there about thirty mostly naked women climbing all over this tank fire?"

"Mostly naked?" Jack laughed. "Bikinis ain't mostly naked."

"If you say so … But why would bikini girls be in a war movie?"

Jack shrugged and grinned. "USO show? How do I know? But they're real decorative."

"Can't argue with that, pal."

A pretty blue eyed blond with carefully coiffed ringlets walked by a moment later and eyed Mac appreciatively. Mac just swallowed hard. She didn't really resemble Nikki. In fact under normal circumstances he would have been extremely flattered because objectively she was even prettier. But all it did was remind him that the pretty blue eyed blond who he'd been a whisker away from asking to move in with him was gone. And that the canister that had caused her absence was being used to hurt innocent civilians.

Jack was looking right at Mac when the girl walked by making eyes. Mac paled at least two shades. "Hey, kid, you eat breakfast? There's some killer donuts over at craft services."

Mac shook his head, almost like he didn't hear him, so Jack just put a hand on his shoulder and turned him back the way he came and started leading him toward the food.

Mac just shook his head when offered a donut. "Jack, I need to talk to you."

"You finally decide to take me up on that offer of some work here? I've always said you have a face for the movies, kid."

Mac made a face. "No. But it is about work."

Jack tipped his chin toward the parking lot, and the two started in that direction.

When they were out of earshot of the small crowd near the food, Jack stopped and faced Mac. "Everything alright?" he asked.

"Um … not exactly." He glanced around to be sure no one was close enough to hear them.

"This is about DXS?"

"The virus surfaced in Greenland, Jack."

"Virus? You mean…"

"The one Nikki died trying to protect, yeah. And it's bad, Jack. Really bad."

"Like zombie apocalypse bad?"

Mac sighed. "Worse."

"And Thornton wants you to come back and try to get it back?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I told her I would."

"You really ready for that?" Jack gestured at Mac's chest vaguely, but he meant kind of everything else, too.

Mac gave a little headshake. "Doesn't matter. This is a chance to not just save the world, but to get the guy who …" His voice caught and he stopped and took a breath. "To get this guy," he finished. "And I need your help."

Jack's mouth felt dry. "There's other good people at DXS who could be your security, Mac. You want somebody who isn't gonna let you down."

Mac frowned. "You haven't let me down! And there's no else at DXS that I trust as much as I trust you to watch my six." He looked directly into Jack's eyes. "If I'm gonna do this, I want my Overwatch with me."

Jack shook his head sadly. "I quit, kid. And I wasn't exactly nice about it. I doubt Thornton would have me back."

Mac grinned. "She sent me."

"What?" Jack asked in real disbelief.

"I told her I'd come back if she reinstated you."

"And that worked?"

"She wants me back. Said I'm the most valuable asset in her arsenal."

"Oh sure, some kid with a silly hamburger name is more valuable than ole Jack," he said with an affectionate grin, and a little bit of hurt.

"I said we're the most valuable ops team. She couldn't disagree."

"You sure she's really in board?"

"She's so on board if it'll get me back through the door, she said Oversight has authorized her to do whatever it takes to ensure mission success."

"We should ask for a raise," Jack said with a grin.

"After we stop the apocalypse," Mac said with an easy grin. That was Jack saying yes.

"Sounds good, kid. Can you give me a lift. I road in with one of the PAs this morning."

"Yeah. Let's go."

"Meecha at the Jeep, kid. I gotta go quit another job."

Mac felt strangely buoyant as he headed for his car. For a guy who was about to go after dangerous international terrorists in possession of a doomsday virus he was suddenly in a great mood.

He had his partner back.

What could go wrong?


	7. Chapter 7

Mac glanced over at Jack, "Hey, you Okay?"

"I … uh … yeah," Jack said unconvincingly.

Mac offered a grin. "Liar."

Jack stared out the window for a minute or two. Then he sighed heavily.

Mac didn't want to push. It just wasn't in his nature. And he kind of hated it when anyone, no matter how well loved or well meaning, did it to him. Once they were back in the city limits and only had about fifteen minutes until they were at work, Mac figured he'd have to try harder to get Jack to open up. He needed Jack in the here and now, not back at Lake Como.

"You gonna tell me what's eating you, or should our first stop at DXS be Interrogation?"

Jack absolutely hated it when Mac would stare out the window and only half answer him. He suddenly understood why it was Mac's default. But, by God, Jack wasn't gonna give him an excuse to do it by setting a bad example himself. Although that didn't necessarily mean he felt like talking.

Jack made himself look over at Mac. "What do you mean? I'm fine." Jack knew it sounded like bullshit. Even worse than when Mac did it. Mostly because Mac was usually able to muster one of his self-deprecating grins to go along with it. Jack knew his own expression was tense.

Mac responded with a smirk and raised eyebrow. It was a teasing expression, but it also said he wasn't going to let this go. "Okay. I'll buy _fine_. If the next time I say it, you let it go without any arguing."

Jack's face creased into a disapproving frown. And he opened and closed his mouth several times like he was going to speak and thought better of it. After a minute he started to laugh. "You're a real little shit, you know it?"

"I'll add it to my business cards." Mac grinned. "You gonna talk to me now?"

Jack looked back out the window. Looking at Mac and saying this was more than he had in him. But he was clearly going to have to do at least the saying part. "I'm just not sure I'm the best man for this job, Mac."

Mac threw him a look, but Jack was still looking out the window and didn't catch it. "Of course you are," he asserted.

Jack sighed, still not looking at Mac. "Mac … Italy ... you could've died."

Mac frowned. "That isn't your fault, Jack. I shouldn't have engaged with the guy. It was just … Nikki." He cleared his throat. "I left myself wide open. Like a damned rookie."

"I left my six wide open. And you both wound up paying for it."

Mac sighed. "It wasn't your fault, Jack. I was blaming myself, too. But Elliot helped."

"How?" Jack asked, a little desperately, Finally looking at Mac.

This time, Mac was the one who avoided eye contact.

"Just … we weren't the ones who decided to go in with a minimalist team. We didn't even get to see the full intel. We didn't set exfil for a whole other country. We … DXS sent us in without having the full picture and without backup. We were just making the best of a bad situation."

Jack frowned. "So if you're blaming Thornton … what the Hell are we doin' headin' back to work for her?"

Mac turned his head to meet Jack's eye for a second as he made the final turn to Headquarters. "She was just doing the best she could with her own orders, Jack."

"So her bosses are our bosses …"

"And they were making calls based on intel none of us get to see. Risk benefit that we can't analyze ourselves. We knew … all of us … what the risks were. Missions can always go bad."

They were quiet for a few minutes, Mac because even though he felt he was doing the right thing it was difficult, and Jack because he was processing his sense of relief that Elliot had been right, Mac didn't blame him.

They pulled into the parking structure with a wave from the security guard. Patty had briefed the perimeter they were welcome already. Mac put the car in park. Jack reached for the door handle but Mac didn't move. Jack stopped and turned back to Mac. "Can you do this, kid?"

Mac nodded, not turning his way. "Yeah. I have to. Lives are depending on this, Jack. Maybe millions of them."

"I know, man, but you're only human. Thornton has other agents if this is too much."

Mac smiled a bit sadly and shook his head, meeting Jack's eye. "Nikki gave her life trying to protect that canister. I owe it to what we had together to stop the guy who took it. Letting someone else do it? That's the coward's way out. I'm … I'm not gonna let myself be that." His voice caught, but he made himself go on. "Not when she was so brave."

Jack reached out and squeezed Mac's shoulder. "You're the bravest man I know, Mac."

Mac flashed him a small smile. "Second bravest. My personal security is always out in front." He saw the pain flash in Jack's eyes that he hadn't been in front at Lake Como. "Unless I do something dumb. Then he still almost freezes to death to bail my ass out."

Jack smiled a little at that. "I'm not sure about all that. But I'm happy as Hell to be back to watchin' your six, MacGyver."

"Thanks for coming back."

"You ready to go in there and get briefed so we can get this bastard."

Mac's jaw clenched for just a second, then he reached for the door handle. "Yeah. I really am."

A short time later they were headed back out of the building, this time to one of the DXS helicopter's to go to interview an asset that Jack enticed Thornton with. Jack had a cryptic sort of smirk on his face that Mac wondered, but didn't ask about. He just strapped in to the harness and pulled on his headgear so they could continue the mission brief.

Thornton kept looking at Mac with something like concern, but he kept his game face firmly in place. Finally, more as a distraction than anything else, he said, "You're gonna have to tell me how Jack Dalton who had to have me program his new remote knows someone who might be good enough to break into Nikki Carpenter's tech."

Jack chuckled into his mic. "That's a long story, kid."

Thornton interjected, "This better be worth our time, Dalton! We don't have it to waste."

"Don't you worry there, Patty. It'll be worth your while. I wouldn't steer Mac wrong here. Ge might not think I owe him anything, but he's got a scar that tells me otherwise."

Mac just gave Jack one of his self-deprecating smiles and looked away.

Thornton offered Jack a half nod that he read as almost approval, followed by a half of one of her Cheshire Cat smiles. "That's Director Thornton."

Jack smirked. "Yes, ma'am."


	8. Chapter 8

The tension between the enigmatic Riley Davis and Jack was driving Mac crazy. Jack's explanation about her dad made sense, but Mac knew there had to be more to it.

Still, despite Jack's habit of trying to sort out personal issues mid-mission, Mac kept the two of them apart on the short flight to San Francisco. It wasn't too difficult with Riley. She clearly had no interest in talking to Jack anyway, and she seemed wary of Mac. Besides, she was thoroughly absorbed in the laptop Thornton had put in her hands before they left DXS. Finally, Mac sort of shook his head and flopped down in the seat across from Jack.

"So."

Jack looked up from his phone. "So, what?"

"You gonna tell me…"

Jack interrupted."I already told you, man. Her old man…"

"Okay, not what I was gonna ask. But for the record, I'm not buying that story either. What I was going to say is why did you get her involved if you knew she hated you?"

Jack sighed. "Let's just say I feel like I owe her a solid and maybe someday I'll tell you all of the why." Jack decided this was as good a time as any to reopen an old conversation and take the heat off himself at the same time. "The same someday you finally tell me about your folks for real."

Mac rolled his eyes. "Right. You want a coffee?" he asked, deciding Jack still looked maybe a little hungover.

"Nah, I'm good, kid, but thanks." He frowned at Mac as the young man rose to grab a coffee for himself. "Are you?"

Mac stopped. "Huh?"

"Good. I mean … Are you really …? I just want to … Look, you know what I'm tryin' to say here."

Mac smiled slightly. "I think so, Jack. Or I will be once we bring Kendrick and Chen in."

"Make 'em pay for what they did to you and Nikki. Yeah. I can see that making a lot of things better, kid."

Mac had no interest in having a serious conversation about Nikki or how he was actually feeling. Not here, not now. And definitely not in front of a woman he'd only really known for about forty-five minutes. So he snorted a laugh. "I was thinking more about stopping the zombie apocalypse, pal."

"Don't even joke about that, Mac."

Mac laughed again at the serious expression his choice of words put on his partner's face. "I'm not joking. But we'll make sure things don't go from bad to total shit storm."

"If we're gonna start quoting Zombieland, does that mean I should start callin' you Mission City?" Jack smirked.

"Only if I can start calling you … does that town you're from even have a name?"

"Hey now, don't you start trash talkin' my hometown, boy."

"I could call you East Texas, maybe," he grinned, thinking that was the sort of slightly cool nickname Jack would probably adopt for himself forever once this mission wrapped up.

"Oh no you don't!"

"What's wrong with…?"

"That's the nickname of this character from another plague-ey apocalypse thing."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, it's called The Stand and it's by Stephen King so you know it's full of bad news."

"_You've _read a book?" Mac raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

Jack looked around for something to throw at his partner, but couldn't come up with anything. "I've read more than one book, ya brat." Mac only got into that kind of bordering on mean teasing if he was trying to keep attention off himself. So just asking if he was okay was pushing too much. Jack decided keeping it light was what Mac was asking him for, so he laughed. "Just not that one. It was a miniseries back when I was in college."

Mac grinned. Jack didn't fail to notice Mac's shoulders lowering a little. "That's more like it." Then his expression shifted into a slight frown, reminded that apocalypse humor might be common conversation between them, there was a dangerous mission in front them. "In all seriousness though, Thornton is working on mobilizing the CDC containment people in San Francisco, just in case."

"I'd like to tell you that makes me feel better, kid, but it doesn't especially."

The pilot announced approach procedures and Jack shifted uncomfortably. Now Mac was the partner who realized levity was what they needed.

"Don't worry, pal, if you start turning into a zombie, I promise I'll take you out before you eat anybody's brains."

Jack chuckled. He felt like they were already back to normal after their four month hiatus. "Well, if you don't manage it, I'm gonna be the best fed zombie in the United States of Zombieland, genius.

0-0-0

When they got to San Francisco, Riley proved that they'd been right to fight Thornton to keep her with them. Despite the fact that Kendrick had been on the move when they took off in LA, she'd tracked him all throughout their short flight. They were still taxiing when she had the name of the hotel he'd just apparently walked into.

Once Jack had "politely" commandeered a vehicle, they were on their way. The closer they got, the more intense Mac's energy was. Riley kept tossing him funny looks, like she wasn't quite sure how to take him. She also kept darting glances at Jack like she wanted to say something, but didn't know how to follow through.

Then, as Mac started working his magic, she talked to Jack a little bit, though she didn't make eye contact. Jack wanted to say something about it, and had almost worked up the courage to do it, when Mac caught sight of Kendrick fleeping the hotel.

Mac saw Kendrick through the billowing smoke and his stomach dropped. For a split second, he was falling off that bridge again, bleeding. It only caused him a moment's hesitation though. He took off running a second later. Then his eyes landed on something even more unsettling. "Nikki?" he breathed. He shook it off. That was impossible. It was just the shock of seeing Kendrick. He took off running again.

He counted on Jack to be following and just pelted toward his objective. He skidded around the corner after Kendrick and felt like a bullet had slammed into his chest again. "Nikki!" he shouted.

Her eyes met his for a split second and he felt like a hole had opened up to swallow him. He only had that split second to process it though. As soon as she dove into the car, Kendrick turned on him, weapon drawn, and started firing. Mac ducked out of the way, but Kendrick had already started moving toward him, still firing. Mac changed directions and ran.

_Where the hell is Jack?_

Another bullet ricocheted off the brick and he doubled his speed. He thought he heard Jack yell but he couldn't be sure. Kendrick was still practically on his heels. Mac had no illusions about how this would end if Kendrick caught up with him again.

His brain didn't quite process that he was nearing the end of his attempt to flee. He almost ran full tilt into the chain link fence at the end of the alley. He started to try to climb it, but his chest, his shoulder screamed. He'd been honest with Thornton when he told her it was "coming along". It was, but he wasn't a hundred percent. Maybe eighty.

Besides if he started scaling that fence, he'd just be a target.

Mac spun and started looking around for options. Kendrick was almost on top of him. Mac's eyes settled on the fire escape between him and the head of the alley. It was a risk. Kendrick might just shoot him without getting close.

Then again, Kendrick couldn't have that many rounds left. It was a good gamble.

Mac loosened the pin, then looked around frantically for something to dive behind. Too late. Kendrick was here.

"Oi, MacGyver!"

They locked eyes. Mac put his hands up.

"Well, I guess this is the end of your silly game of hide-and-seek, MacGyver."

Mac's hand struck out, fast like a snake and he pulled the pin. He thought maybe Kendrick squeezed off another shot right before he went down, but Mac was pretty sure he didn't hit anything. Once Kendrick was on the ground, Mac started back up the alley, Nikki the only thing on his mind now that he wasn't trying to avoid Kendrick taking him out.

He didn't even process Jack's arrival. He sort of heard Jack say, "You all right?"

He just kept going. Jack made sure Kendrick was out cold, then followed his partner, worried about the wild eyed blank looking on the kid's fast. "Mac? Mac, where you going?"

He finally caught up with Mac. The kid didn't even look like he knew where he was. He looked like … well, like he was in shock. But he wasn't bleeding. That was good. He grabbed Mac's arm and made him look at him. "What are you looking for? It's over, man." Mac just shook his head. "We got him."

Mac shook his head again. "No, it's not …" Another head shake. This time he looked like he was trying to clear it after getting his bell rung by somebody twice his size. He swallowed a couple of times and finally managed. "Nikki's alive."

Jack blinked. "What do you mean Nikki's alive?"

The pain on Mac's face was worse than any Jack had ever seen. Mac looked like he was afraid Jack wouldn't believe him. Which given some of Mac's history, Jack supposed he understood. "I saw her," Mac insisted earnestly. "She was with Kendrick." Mac grimaced and Jack thought he knew what someone's face would look like if someone reached directly into his chest and ripped out his heart. "They've been in on this together."

Riley had joined them in the mean time. She didn't exactly know Mac but the look on his face scared her a little. He struck her as a guy whose mouth butter wouldn't melt in, but right now he looked like he was being burned from the inside. And Jack … she did know him. And Jack looked scared shitless. But not from any outside threat. He was looking at Mac like the dude was dying right in front of him.

She needed info. " Whoa, guys, time-out." They both looked at her. "Are you talking about the same dead Nikki? Your girlfriend Nikki?"

Mac breathed, "Yeah."

"How is that possible?" she demanded.

Jack's face harder, and suddenly Riley wondered how she or her mother ever believed this guy was in retail. "We're about to find that out," he growled.

"Where are you going?" Riley asked as he started to stalk away. She turned to Mac, "Where's he going?"

"To get Kendrick." Mac took a couple slow measured breaths. He had to box up these overwhelming feelings and finish this job. Lives were on the line. "Hey, can you go get the van?"

"What for?"

"Jack's getting ready for an interrogation."

"So?"

Mac met her eyes. "We're gonna need some privacy."


	9. Chapter 9

Riley looked a little freaked out during their interrogation of Kendrick. Jack wanted to say something to make it alright for her. He really did. The way she was looking at him, like a stranger, like someone she'd known all along she should be afraid of, pained him deeply.

But his bigger worry was the look on Mac's face.

When Kendrick revealed Nikki had been involved with stealing the virus, with putting Mac in a position to get shot, all for a payday, Mac looked like someone punched him in the gut. Or maybe stabbed him in the back. Then it slowly morphed into an expression Jack recognized from Mac's stint in the hospital with the bullet wound he now knew Nikki was responsible for. It was similar to the one he wore when Jack had told him they hadn't been able to find Nikki's body. And she was getting away, just as lost as he thought she'd been in the depths of Lake Como. Riley saw it, too. She didn't even know the guy and she wanted to help wipe that look off his face.

Then Jack realized he knew where to look for her, thought maybe they could stop her. "Those engines were too small to be commercial. I heard a Bell Ranger.

I think we're looking for a private airport, one that services planes and choppers."

Riley started typing before he finished speaking. It only took a second before her face lit up. "Got something. It's in San Carlos, ten minutes from here."

Both Jack and Riley breathed an involuntary sigh of relief when Mac's game face slipped securely back into place. It was like he'd simply shut the door on his feelings and was entirely mission focused again.

"Call Thornton, tell her to ground all airplanes in the area. We can't let that virus leave the city."

Riley made the call, while Jack slid into the driver's seat and got them moving. Despite the breakneck pace he set to get them across the city, he stole occasional glances at Mac. Instead of giving Jack a hard time about his driving, or talking to Riley and Thornton, or even taking the opportunity to interrogate Kendrick further on the drive, Mac was just staring straight ahead, poised on the edge of his seat.

They whipped around a turn and Mac's arm fired out to grab the dash to keep from being thrown from his seat. When he still didn't make a comment about Jack's driving, Jack flashed him a look of real concern. "You doin' alright there, pal?"

Mac sighed. "Not really," he admitted.

"Do you…?"

"The airport!" Mac pointed, interrupting any further inquiries Jack might have made as to Mac's state of affairs.

"Hang on!" Jack warned as he hit the gas to get through the security fence. If they stopped at the gate of this private airfield they'd never get inside in time to stop Nikki. Thornton was having a hard time getting through to the tower here to ground the flights. She thought it might be by design since the wealthy patrons of places like that tended to be disinterested in government interference.

Mac was on his feet and out of the van almost before it came all the way to a halt.

He scanned the area for any sign of Nikki.

_Damn it! _There was a private jet taxiing and clearly getting ready for take off. _That's got to be Nikki._

"Mac!" Jack shouted when he saw the plane moving.

"I see it!" Mac answered, taking off at a sprint.

_Angus, no! _He heard her voice in his head, plain as day. He realized what part of his brain was planning without permission from the rest of it. _What the hell? _he asked himself, even as he clawed his way onto the landing gear.

His stomach dropped as the plane's wheels left the runway. Worse still, his still-recovering chest and shoulder screamed as they took his full weight. He gasped at the sudden sharp pain and then again as his left arm cramped, letting him know there was no way to was going to cooperate with him clinging to the bottom of this plane like a freaking barnacle on a ship's hull.

He scrambled to brace his feet against the compartment door to take some of the weight off.

The good news was he was able to find purchase and brace his feet, immediately easing the strain on his slightly less than totally rehabbed GSW.

The bad news was in the process of hooking his feet on that door, he'd looked down. Mac didn't like being on the ladder at home to paint the trim on the second floor windows. He hated the amusement park rides Jack and Boze always dragged him on. Honestly he didn't love being on the inside of a plane, but he could reasonably ignore how high up he was.

He was flatly terrified to be where he was right now. Especially because if he couldn't get the damned thing back on the ground in a hurry, he was definitely going to fall. And he would die in the worst way he could actually imagine. Falling.

Not only that, Nikki would get away. She'd never answer for what she'd done. And that virus would kill innocent people.

That thought refocused Mac in something other than how far away the ground was. He was able to think more actively about how to get back on the ground and accomplish the mission. He eyeballed then wiring he was hanging onto.

_Yes! _The hydraulics for the landing gear weren't buried.

He lost his footing again and he was pretty sure he was having a freaking heart attack. But now that he had a plan, it was easier to just keep his shit together, resituate his feet, and cut the appropriate line.

He'd just gotten back to feeling pretty stable with his grip and his feet when the plane banked for its return to the airstrip. On one hand it was great. It meant his plan worked and he'd be back on the ground in a minute.

Unfortunately on the other hand, the ride got really rocky with the decent. He couldn't seem to keep his feet where he needed them and would up mostly swinging from the plane's undercarriage. He was damn near panicking by the time they neared the runway, convinced he wasn't going to be able to hang on long enough to survive this desperate play to stop Nikki and the virus getting away.

He tried to get himself to let go when he thought they were low enough to get out of the way of the landing without hurting himself. But his fingers just wouldn't release. He sort of wished Jack was there to give him a shove like he had a few times when they'd had to parachute in places. Or Boze. Their teenage years involved a lot of situations where Mac had needed a push, real or metaphorical. From asking out Darlene Martin to bungee jumping. Although what had made Mac think either was a good idea was still a mystery to him, even all these years later.

When the wheels jolted against the runway, Mac was finally able to release his grip. He rolled away from the plane and lay on the pavement for a second, reassuring himself he was actually alive and back on beautiful solid Earth.

When Jack and Riley came running up to him, he made himself get to his feet. He was pleased that he looked a hell of a lot less shaky than he felt as he followed Jack into the cabin.

When his eyes met Nikki's over Jack's shoulder his breath caught. In part because the part of him that had loved her couldn't help the split second of relief that she was really here, really alive, and really looking at him with those incredible blue eyes. But it was mostly because the rest of him was registering the triple level of her betrayal both of him and of the country they'd both sworn to protect. That part of him felt the bullet hit him square in the chest again. Felt like his heart had stopped.

Then her eyes narrowed at Jack and he knew without a doubt she'd kill him and never lose a second's sleep over it. He didn't know what made him do it. Maybe it was the part of him that had lived her. And maybe it was the part that always made him do things that caused Jack to call him a "reckless little shit." But he stepped in front of Jack and locked eyes with Nikki.

"If you're going to shoot him, you're gonna have to go through me."


	10. Chapter 10

A second or two passed.

Mac caught the almost imperceptible tensing of muscles that preceded pulling the trigger.

He held his breath.

When nothing happened, he stepped forward like it was what he'd been expecting all along and took Nikki's gun. He handed it off to Jack and patted her down. Anyone else might not have bothered as anything more than a formality. Nikki favored jeans that were basically a second skin and tops that weren't much looser. But Mac had been in the room while she dressed often enough to know just how many weapons it was possible for her to conceal.

When he came up empty handed, he stood. He knew his first question should be about the virus. What found its way out of his mouth instead was, "Was everything a lie?"

She looked him directly in the eye and her voice trembled with emotion when she answered, "Not us."

It was so raw, so genuine, he wanted to believe her. It was worse than if she'd admitted it was all a lie though. Because she'd looked him in the face countless times and told him how dedicated she was to their job, to their country, to helping people.

"Then why?" She answered with the barest shake of her head. "I thought you died trying

to do something good."

He barely heard her reply. He shifted back to agent mode, because if he kept just being Mac, her betrayal was going to break him down. He'd deal with it later. Alone.

The only thing that mattered right now was getting that virus back.

His eyes narrowed. "It's not here, is it?" She didn't answer, tried to keep her face neutral. But he knew her too well. "Guys, stop looking."

Jack and Riley both paused in their search and looked at him for guidance. He sighed. Nothing was ever easy. Why was nothing ever easy? He spun her around and pulled cuffs out of his pocket, he clicked them into place, caught between being glad to have her in custody and wanting to scream at both his personal sense of betrayal and the danger he knew was now loose in the world, headed who knew where.

"She already sold it."

Jack drew his weapon again, almost on reflex at the news. He leveled it right at Nikki's head. "You sure."

He sighed again and gave a slight shake of his head. It wasn't denial, it was pure frustration. "Yeah, I am." He put a hand on Nikki's shoulder and pushed her toward the door. "Let's loop Thornton in and get DHS to pick Nikki up."

Jack came around behind Nikki, gun still drawn. "Yeah, it's been a minute since the locals got to nab a terrorist. Bet they'll be all kinds of happy to see her. Mac walked out ahead of them, not looking left or right, other than to wave Riley outside with him.

Nikki stopped moving, and narrowed her eyes at Jack. "You're not going to find it," she sneered.

"Your ex might be interested in asking nicely, Nik, but I'm not. And those DHS folks won't be either. You're a terrorist. You don't have any of those fancy rights like an honest to goodness citizen anymore." Not anywhere near as gentle as his partner, Jack gave her a hard shove toward the exit.

By the time they got outside, local law enforcement was already on the scene, having been called in by Thornton when they'd finished interrogating Kendrick. They'd hauled him out of the back of their "borrowed" van already. Jack handed Nikki off to a pair of the locals in time to catch Thornton sounding absolutely furious.

"So, Nikki's alive. Benjamin Chen is in the wind and we don't know when or where he's gonna unleash that virus."

Mac looked thoroughly guilty, as though it was entirely his fault. Jack plastered on kind of a smirk and prepared to take some of the heat off his partner. "I know it looks bad…"

"Bad?!" she practically shouted. "Jack, bad is when you accidentally run over your neighbor's dog. This is a damn catastrophe of biblical proportions."

Mac's face had smoothed, but it was with thought, or more accurately with memory. He said, an almost dreamy voice. "It's here. The target's San Francisco."

Mac jogged over to catch up with Nikki before she could be carted away. Jack and Riley were right on his heels. "Chen's planning on releasing the virus here, isn't he?" he demanded.

She squared her shoulders and answered crisply, "You're wrong. It's Tokyo."

Mac shook his head. He suddenly understood why Jack occasionally just lost his shit and punched a wall. Right now he kind of wanted to do the same thing. "Oh, you're lying."

Riley and Jack both looked confused. Mac felt compelled to explain. He also thought it might tip Nikki over toward just admitting what she'd done. He glanced at Jack and Riley. "Eliza A. Pittsinger. I saw it on Kendrick's phone, but I didn't realize it until now." He shifted his eye contact back to Nikki. "Pittsinger wrote a poem in 1907 on the anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake. Over 3,000 people died in the fires."

Her jaw firmed. She squared up with him in a way that would have looked aggressive if she wasn't handcuffed. "Sometimes a purge is necessary to fix what's broken."

Mac snapped. "Don't pretend this was about ideology. You did this for a payday!" He couldn't think of any reason to betray his country, but money was the worst one someone else could have.

She shook her head, her expression a combination of determined and desperate for him to understand why she would have betrayed him. "Mac, did you ever ask yourself why our government wants that weapon? What are they planning on doing with it?"

That was the tone she always used when she was trying to talk Mac into doing something he didn't think was a good idea or really didn't want to do. It had gotten him into trouble more than once when he capitulated to it. Honestly, they'd gone in the way they had in Cairo because Nikki had pushed for it, while she stayed safely in the van, supposedly jamming signals. Which now that Jack thought about it, she definitely hadn't been doing because the call from Bozer had come at the worst possible moment and distracted them both. Well, it distracted Mac. Jack had to admit, he'd kind of been screwing around before everything went to hell. He'd mostly been doing it because he'd been pissed that Mac sided with Nikki about where to go next on that mission. He could see the wheels of those old habits wanting to turn. Mac was the smartest guy he'd ever known. Like it was a superpower how smart Mac was. But Nikki Carpenter was the kid's kryptonite. He butted in, hoping to grind those wheels to a halt. "We're running out of time here, Mac."

Nikki's eyes shot daggers at Jack before returning to MacGyver's. "Even if you find it, the people I work for will stop at nothing to get it back."

Jack couldn't resist poking her just a little. "We'll see about that, won't we?"

Her defiant expression, the almost smug way she looked at him, jolted Mac back into action. "No more games. Where's Chen?"

"You should leave."

There it was.

The indication that she still cared for him.

He hated the way the idea warmed him. And he also recognized it for what it was. Pure manipulation. _Yeah, well, two can play at that game_. Only he wasn't willing to stoop to using the relationship he'd thought they had to do it. He forced a confident, half amused smirk on to his face.

"Well, that's not gonna happen." He was satisfied at her sharp intake of breath. "I'm not going anywhere and neither are you." He wondered what he looked like to her at the moment because she dropped back a step. He let his smile spread. "So, Chen will release the virus here, then we'll both die." She recoiled visibly this time and swallowed hard. He heard it. He advanced on her, got close enough to make himself uncomfortable, but successfully kept it off his face. "So what's it gonna be?"

There was a long silence. Nikki seemed to think she could wait him out. She looked at the two men who'd been leading her toward their car.

Mac shook his head and waved off the other agents. "You guys should get out of here. Evacuation efforts are probably going to be all hands on deck. And the prisoner isn't going anywhere."

They nodded and started toward their car without another word. They got as far as opening their doors. When Nikki half shouted, "Stop! Chen is heading for the heart of the city. There's a military truck. It's disguised as National Guard. He should be hitting the highway right about now."

Mac sighed his relief, he turned to direct Riley to get Thorton back on the computer. "Already on it," she said crisply before he could open his mouth.

He raised his eyebrows at Jack and mouthed, "She's really good," thinking she was busy with her laptop and wouldn't notice.

"Yes, I am," she agreed, spinning the laptop and revealing Thornton's face glaring out at them expectantly.

Jac chuckled, he couldn't help it. Riley might absolutely hate him right now, but he could only think it was a good thing to bring together two of the smartest people he'd ever know on this job. He was also hoping he could maybe extend it beyond that. He owed the kid that much. He felt like their history might have had something to do with how she wound up in the clink. "She really is."

"Who really is what?" Thornton demanded.

Mac pretended she hadn't asked. "We have a line on Chen."

He proceeded to fill her in.

"So, get after him."

"Patty, he's got a pretty good head start. We're gonna need a chopper or somethin'."

"Director Thornton and you're at an airfield. Commandeer one!"

"Oh, right!"

He and Mac took off at a run, leaving Riley to coordinate support with Thornton.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note - Okay. I know it's been a minute. (More than a minute, like months … but who's counting?) And I know I have a few stories kind of up in the air. It's been a colorful year. What can I say?_

_Well, one of the things I can say is I finally finished the sequel to my debut novel and it's in my publisher's hands, so I can screw around on the keyboard for fun again for a while. I plan to tie up loose ends on the stories I've had open and maybe get back at things here in the Macgyver fandom to relax a little. I've missed it. It's good to be back._

Mac was frequently amazed by Jack's skill as a pilot. It was similar to watching him handle a gun. Like it was second nature, or more accurately, a superpower.

Jack could seem so distracted, so goofy, and sometimes like he was more than a few cards short of a full deck, but behind a weapon or the stick, he was totally focused and damned good at what he did.

At the moment, Mac was both his usual levels of grateful for his partner's exceptional skill and wishing it didn't come with quite so dominant a cowboy complex. They zipped over the highway so close to the ground that the slipstream of an eighteen wheeler caused them some turbulence.

Mac reflexively gripped the edges of his seat. Jack glanced at him, but thankfully didn't comment on his tension. What he did say was, "How you doin' with Homeland takin' Nikki into custody?"

Mac's eyes slid toward him, then away again. "Can we not do this right now, Jack?"

"I'm just checkin' in to make sure your head's in the game, that's all, hoss."

"My head's right where it needs to be, Jack. On the mission," Mac replied testily, indicating that Jack needed to be less worried about Mac and his disastrous love life and more worried about what he was doing with a wave at the traffic in front of them and at the way the nose of the helicopter dipped when Jack looked his way with concern.

"A'right, kid, I hear ya. But when this is all over, we got a lotta catchin' up to do."

Mac actually threw him what he interpreted as a glare. "Yeah. We do."

"I'm real sorry for flakin' out on ya like I did, Mac," Jack began to apologize for perhaps the hundredth time since Mac had shown up on that movie set to bring Jack back into the fold of DXS.

"Jack, don't," Mac sighed and shook his head. It hadn't been a glare at all. It had been Mac's own guilt that he hadn't tried harder to pull Jack back in. He was inclined to forget how badly off he'd been, inclined to forget he'd involved Elliot, even inclined to forget he'd physically gone and retrieved Jack in the end. "It's not like I gave you a lot of reason to stick around, pal," he said, mostly under his breath. Suddenly he forgot all about their conversation to point excitedly, "There it is! The truck Nikki said Chen was driving!"

Jack scanned the whole area, wanting to be one hundred percent certain he zeroed in on the right thing. He hit the throttle. "I got him."

Mac started unstrapping himself from the safety harness before they even caught up with the truck. Jack radio'd DXS and back up was on its way, but they were too far out to be certain of doing any good, knowing the virus was on that truck, and not knowing what the terrorists had planned for it.

There was really only one way to do this.

Jack read Mac's intention and, much as he didn't love the idea, he was pretty sure he could get Mac where he needed to go. He caught them up with the truck and hovered over top of it, matching the truck's speed almost exactly. Mac braced himself against the skids and for a long second or two clung to the fuselage for dear life. Then, without a backward glance at his partner, he dropped onto the top of the truck.

It was only a few feet to fall (Jack had done a Hell of a job getting him close), but it still jarred a grunt out of him. The wind whipped at highway speed around him, making it hard to see, say nothing of the pelting force from the blades of the bird hovering above.

Mac figured he had two choices. He could try to drop into the cab and take on Chen directly. Or he could get himself down into the back of the truck. If he didn't find anything, he could go at Chen more easily from the back of the cab than the top, or maybe come up with a way to disable the truck and grind the whole thing to a halt so DXS and local backup could just come scoop the guy up and offer an assist.

That made the decision an easy one. Mac got out his pocket knife and cut his way through the heavy canvas. He let himself down as far as he could hang from his arms and despite being jostled loose before he was quite ready, he dropped down onto the floor of the truck and rolled out of the fall easily.

He took a second to orient himself and look around. "Uh … Jack … We've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Jack asked, sounding exactly like he really didn't want to know.

Mac glanced up at the helicopter, visible through the hole in the canvas above him. "The kind you don't want to be anywhere near." He worked steadily to assess the somewhat complicated device in front of him, while still filling Jack in on what was in front of him. "Chen's using an IED to send the virus airborne. It'll kill millions."

"Well, can you stop it?" Jack demanded, the pitch of his voice rising in a way that was both familiar and weirdly welcome. It spoke of old habits and hundreds of similar situations. The reminder slowed Mac's breathing and gave him space to think.

"I don't know. You should probably get out of here though," he said, knowing how Jack would respond, but feeling it needed saying anyway.

Predictably, Jack said dismissively, "Ah, you know I'm not gonna do that." Mac could picture the wave of his hand as he spoke. Then he could hear Jack's encouraging grin."If you go kaboom, I go kaboom."

Mac couldn't even help the smile that flashed across his face in response, slightly nervous though it was. It had been a long goddamned time since he'd faced down one of these things. He started wracking his brain for the complete mental checklist he needed to disarm it, without, as previously mentioned, going kaboom.

As though he could sense the younger man's tension, Jack continued a familiar encouraging litany. "This is what the Army trained you for … You can do this in your sleep."

Just as familiar, Mac's eyes slipped into what Jack had often referred to as a gold medal Olympic roll. "Yeah, okay, I could do without the pep talk right now."

Mac hoped to sound confident, maybe even cocky. What he sounded, to both him and Jack, was pretty damned stressed out. He'd been out of the game for going on five months.

Jack started right back up, knowing that if anything could get Mac out of his own head, it would be a classic case of good old fashioned being annoyed by Jack Dalton. "Okay, that's cool," Jack said pleasantly. "Just tryin'ta do my part."

Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes again, but this time the expression was less put on and more openly affectionate. Besides, he finally got the cover off the device. _Well, shit_, he thought. What found its way out of his mouth was, "Great."

Jack knew that tone. It never boded well. Never ended well in his experience either.

This case was no different. Mac had to make a choice out of a series of impossible ones if he was going to disarm the bomb and stop Chen's plan from killing half of central California, or at the very least a good portion of San Francisco. But, as usual, that was the moment the rest of the situation decided to go all sorts of sideways, too. From the passenger side of the truck, one of Chen's men had made his way over the top to drop into where Mac was trying to disarm the bomb without Jack seeing him until the last minute.

"Hey, Mac! You better pick one quick. Someone's comin' down the chimney and it ain't Santa Claus!" Jack warned, just in time for Mac to keep from getting totally blindsided.

Not totally blindsided didn't mean not jumped though. And the worst part was Mac had just chosen the wrong wire so the timer was ticking.

Chen's partner in crime was pulling Mac off the device before he'd really processed Jack's warning. The rolling tussle was complicated by the bumping sway of the truck and the fact that the goon in question had probably fifty pounds on Mac.

Mac was feeling every minute he'd been out of the field, feeling that he'd slacked on rehabbing his bullet wound due to his uncertainty about returning to work at DXS at all, and above all feeling the timer ticking away down to 'kaboom' while this giant handed him his ass repeatedly.

He got some good licks in, but the guy was huge and in better fighting shape than he was. It wasn't too many seconds before the guy got both hands on Mac's neck. Mac was vaguely aware of Jack's voice in his ear. "Hey, Mac!"

"I'm a little busy right now!" he gasped.

He knew the timer was continuing to click down to zero on the deadly device he'd dropped in here to stop, but all of that was secondary to the dots dancing in his field of vision, to the tunneling down to black in front of his eyes.

Then he distinctly heard Jack say, "Catch!"

Not exactly the item Mac would have hoped for, Jack's back-up piece sailed through the hole in the tarp above him and his opponent. But, as Mac would have told anyone who asked, in these sorts of situations, beggars could not, in fact, be choosers. Any port in a storm… There was something there, anyway. Mac managed to pick up the weapon and land a solid blow on the behemoth's skull before he actually passed out from lack of oxygen. The guy went flying right out of the back of the truck. It only took Mac a second more to get to his feet and tip Jack a waving salute, "Thanks!"

Jack said something else, but Mac only about half heard it. He was too busy assessing the IED. The timer was going to leave him no choice. There was not going to be time to diffuse the damn thing. Mac dropped down onto the floor of the truck to get a better look at how the virus was wired in. Then he fished around in his pockets and unbent a paperclip, going to work on detaching the virus container, while filling Jack in on what was up.

It seemed like a great plan until Jack stated the obvious, "Now, jump!"

"I can't risk shattering the container and releasing the virus."

While that was true, if he stayed, not only would his old nickname of Carl's Junior become really obnoxiously accurate for his tombstone when he got barbequed by this IED, that would also release the virus in the way they'd been trying to avoid before Chen's goon had jumped him.

The only alternative Mac could see was a parasail of sorts. Not a good alternative. In fact, once the wind caught his improvised chute and he was whipped into the air at least ten feet at highway speed, it didn't seem especially good at all.

Even less good was when the updraft failed him and Mac and the canister slammed down onto the pavement in an unceremonious, graceless heap. He rolled, more out of a sense of self-preservation than any instinct to preserve the canister, and was relieved that despite screeching tires and honking horns, he was still on one piece a few moments later.

The sounds of sirens in the distance could be heard over the sound of his own blood in his ears. Other sounds crowded for his attention, but Mac was more focused on the truck that was still pulling away down the highway at increasing speed. He thought it should have blown already.

A second later it did. Mac half frowned. The explosion wouldn't have sent the virus airborne at all. Maybe it would have incinerated it, but nothing more…

BOOM!

Mac ducked and covered, narrowly missing getting his head taken off by a piece of debris from the truck in the secondary explosion.

He was still laying stunned on the pavement when he noticed Jack had landed the helicopter, right in the middle of the highway no less, and was sprinting across the median strip in his direction in full overprotective Overwatch fury. "Mac! Mac! You alright?" he yelled, well before he was close enough for Mac to be able to answer.

Mac started and failed to get to his feet a couple of times before Jack reached him, but by the time Jack's cowboy boots skidded to a stop on the pavement in front of him, Mac had made it to one knee and accepted a hand up, along with another very concerned, "You okay?"

Mac offered a half smirk that set his lip bleeding freely again and nodded. "Yeah."

Jack grinned in return as Mac drew the virus container out of his jacket and both were relieved to see it was still entirely intact. "My man! Savin' the world in style."

Mac was caught in a brief fit of laughter that he knew was characteristic of tension t starting to bleed off. Jack joined him in it until a group of infectious disease personnel in Tyvek suits started jogging up to them and Jack's laughter immediately dried up. He backed away from Mac and gestured at his partner as if to say, "Leave me out of this," which actually got Mac laughing harder.

He held the canister out to the first faceless support staff fully outfitted in protective gear. Another came along a moment later and reached out to take him by the elbow. Mac resisted the contact. Instead he just asked, "Where?"

The man? woman? robot? indicated the ambulance not too far off with what Mac found to be an irritatingly stern gesture. As though he didn't know how this worked.

Mac held up his hands in a placating gesture. The CDC Whoever started toward Jack, but Mac just stepped between them. Jack never reacted well to infectious disease people, evidenced by the fact that he was practically sneaking off back toward the helicopter they'd arrived in. "Come on, Big Guy," Mac said with a smirk. "We gotta go wait over there." He tipped his chin at the ambulance he'd been directed to.

Jack's eyes narrowed. "What for?"

"They're just gonna verify the container hasn't been breached. Then they'll let us get out of here."

"They're not gonna just decide we look like lab rats once we get over there?"

Mac just started walking, knowing Jack would follow. "They better not," Mac said lightly. "I've had more than enough people I didn't want there in my personal space already today."

"Speaking of," Jack said almost hesitantly, "You might want to let one of their people have a look at you anyway. Your lip is bleeding pretty good."

Mac wiped it off with his sleeve. "It's fine." He repeated the sentiment to the CDC people a few minutes later when one of them pointed out his bloody lip and offered to get one of the local medics to have a look at him.

Jack started to go into Overwatch mode and opened his mouth to encourage Mac to reconsider. "Mac, don't you think…"

"No you don't, pal. Or I swear I'll tell them you suddenly feel funny and I'm worried we breached the canister."

"They'd get all up in your business, too!" Jack said indignantly, but with a decent helping of thinly concealed worry.

Mac laughed. "It'd be worth it to teach you a lesson."

They were quiet for a while after that.

Jack glared a bit resentfully at the containment people, mostly because their protective gear kind of freaked him out and he knew they could tell, and he could picture them snickering behind their face shields.

Mac stared off into the distance. If Jack had known him a shade less well, he could have convinced himself that Mac was interested in what was going on out by the site of the explosion. Or maybe even that he was trying to overhear what the CDC folks were saying to each other over where they were inspecting that canister. But he did know him. And Mac was just fully up in his own head.

"You think Patty'll let us bring Riley on at DXS?" felt safely distant from Mac's own problems.

"Her work was really impressive today," Mac said with a slow nod. Then a line formed across his forehead. "Her past might make her a security risk though. After everything, I'm not sure Thornton will want to put herself out there like that."

"If it keeps her out of supermax, I figure Ri would be about the most loyal employee DXS ever had," Jack said to steer the conversation back away from Mac's own territory again.

"Mmm," he said neutrally. "I kind of hope so. I like her. Her style, I mean. And she takes no shit off you, which is fun for me, too," he offered with a small smile.

Jack figured if he had some time he could get Mac really talking, like old times, maybe get him feeling like himself a little. It wasn't very long before the CDC people confirmed the canister wasn't damaged though.

Before long, they were on the jet back to LA.

Jack wanted to try to get Mac talking again, but he felt like he really needed to coach Riley on how to handle Thornton when they got back. By the time he got her to agree to actually have the conversation with him, they were practically landing. Mac had been quiet throughout the flight, but Jack had to admit, it was very short.

They went directly to Thornton's office as soon as they got back to DXS. Thornton got up from her desk smoothly. "Congratulations. You stopped another apocalypse," she said with a wry tilt of her lips.

"Another apocalypse?" Riley asked with a sharp raise of one of her eyebrows.

"We could tell ya, but we'd hafta kill ya," Jack grinned.

Mac chuckled. "He's making it sound a lot more interesting than it is."

Thornton tilted her head at Mac. "Your lip is bleeding."

Mac's tongue snaked out as though that would negate the observation. "Huh. I guess I am."

She shook her head. The split lip and the usual bumps and bruises that went with a mission were probably the least of the pain he was in at the moment. But they were the ones she could do something about. "Get yourself taken care of, Mac. Then take it easy for the weekend. We can handle your part of the debrief on Monday."

Mac sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "Yes, ma'am."

Mac tipped a smile at Riley and gave Jack a nod.

"Okay if I stop by later?" Jack asked.

"I thought things were going back to normal? You're asking now?"

Jack chuckled. "Right. Nevermind. Forget I said anything."

Mac waved and closed the door behind him.

Jack turned to Thornton. "You know he's going straight home, right?"

"No, he's going to the infirmary."

"You sure about that?"

"Of course. I told him to…"

"Take care of himself and take it easy for the weekend. You never said infirmary."

Thornton gave him a very particular look. "Mac knows what I meant."

"Mac knows what everybody means. He also knows a loophole when he hears one."

"An excellent point," she agreed. "But Mac is a very sensible person and…"

"And he hung a left out of your office."

Patricia Thornton let out such a long suffering sigh Riley had to conceal a snort of laughter. Thornton gestured for both of them to sit. "Let's talk. But when we're through, you are planning on dropping by to check on him?"

"Patty, seriously? Look who you're askin'."

She sat back down behind her desk. "That's Director Thornton, Dalton."


	12. Chapter 12

Bozer must've worked a double. He was sleeping when Mac got home.

On the one hand, Mac was grateful. There were lies upon lies he had to tell, not the least of which was that he was fine.

But on the other, the real truth of the matter was he wasn't fine, and while Mac wasn't an especially demonstrative guy himself, he had no objection to a hug from a friend. In fact, much as he would struggle to admit it … he often needed one. It just wasn't something he had an especially easy time initiating or asking for.

If he was honest though, he didn't think he could keep up the "I'm okay," facade that would be necessary with Boze today. And if Bozer sensed he needed one of those friend hugs, he would probably be calling in to work and dragging Mac to the emergency room, because now that he'd had a little time for the adrenaline of the mission to wear off, Mac pretty much hurt all over.

He figured it wouldn't be very long before Thornton figured out he'd "misinterpreted' her suggestion and called him to make her _suggestion _more of an order, so he did what any self-respecting employee looking to avoid the boss for the weekend would do. He turned off his phone and plugged it into the charging station.

Then he headed into his room and closed the door behind him. Bozer had been thrilled when he'd called him and said he was finally going back to work. But Mac figured he could play the, "It really wore me out," card for a couple of days at least to buy himself some alone time.

He tossed his jacket onto his bed and caught his reflection in the mirror over his dresser. His lip was bleeding again. He sighed.

He opened his nightstand and grabbed the bottle of Advil that lived there, downed four without water, and headed into the bathroom. As he peeled himself out of clothes he felt like he'd been wearing for roughly a week rather than just a very long, very busy day, he groaned several times.

Denim and leather had kept him from getting scraped up by his hasty escape from the truck with the canister, but it hadn't kept him from getting pretty beaten up by it. He supposed that wasn't the only beating he took today. He'd hit the pavement pretty hard when his arms had finally given out under the plane, then Chen's lackey had whaled on him like he was trying to win a spot on next season's Ultimate Fighter, too.

_Compared to your first encounter with that canister, you're not doing too badly. _

The thought was meant to have some humor, maybe a little forced bravado. Instead, slow motion images of Nikki going over the bridge in Lake Como, of himself reaching out for her, of the bullet slamming into his chest, overwhelmed him. Then he was nearly knocked over by a repeat of the feeling he'd gotten when he'd locked eyes with her before she'd dived into the car and Kendrick had chased him, firing a gun at him for the second time.

He couldn't even make it as far as closing the lid of the toilet to sit down. He just leaned against his sink taking deep, albeit uneven, breaths for what felt like a really long time. This wasn't his first experience with flashbacks, but he wondered vaguely why they never got any easier to deal with.

Eventually, he got on top of it enough to lean into the shower and turn on the water. Memories of Lake Como made him feel chilled to the bone by the icy water he'd soaked in all those months ago. He wanted to sear it off himself with the shower because the sheer irrationality of the feeling was even more unsettling than the brief flashbacks he'd experienced.

He leaned against the tiles and let the hot water stream over him. He closed his eyes, as if that would somehow stop the images from playing in front of them.

It didn't.

When the water started to cool, he figured he'd wallowed in his misery long enough and turned it off. The water, not the misery. He had a feeling that was here to stay for a while. His damned lip was bleeding again. Instead of even messing around with the stypitic in his shaving kit, he just grabbed the spare superglue out of the drawer, dabbed it on the corner of his mouth, winced at the burn, but smirked his satisfaction that it worked almost instantly. He grabbed the towel off the warming wrack he'd built for them.

As he dried off, he realized he had started to shiver a little. He disliked the psychological cold that still clung to him, so he dressed warmly in jeans and one of his favorite soft flannels.

When that failed to get him as warm as he wanted to be, he decided to head out onto the deck and start a fire. His lighter wasn't in his jacket, so he started searching around his room. After several fruitless minutes, he opened the top drawer of his extra dresser, thinking maybe it had fallen in.

He was right. He found it. What he also found was a shoebox full of pictures Nikki had printed out to make a scrapbook from their trip to her family's vineyard in Ojai.

He decided the fire could have a dual purpose this afternoon.

As he passed through the living room he had half an impulse to go grab his phone, just to check it in case Jack tried to get a hold of him or anything. But he really didn't want to ignore the texts or calls he was certain he'd gotten from Thornton. If he just didn't pick it up, he could at least sort of truthfully claim ignorance. Besides, either things were going to go back to normal and Jack would just stop by anyway.

Or they weren't and he'd have to deal with that.

He could hear Bozer singing in the shower.

He honestly thought about heading back into his room and pretending to be asleep. Then he wouldn't have to pretend to be okay for Boze. He shook his head. _Since when can you fool Wilt Bozer into thinking you're asleep when you're not? _He snorted a rueful laugh. _Since never, actually. _Boze would assume going back to work would be hard. He could count on Boze giving him some space he was pretty sure.

Mac sighed and headed out onto the deck.

He left the doors open, so Bozer wouldn't feel like he was shutting him out, even though he wasn't really looking for company. If he was honest, it was a little bit of a tactic. Bozer wouldn't be able to resist coming out here if the door was closed. If he left it open, Boze would probably just stick his head out here and say goodbye before he felt for work.

The wood was dry and there was good kindling and tinder in the box next to the fire pit. Mac had a decent blaze going in a few minutes. Once the fire was going he started casting pictures into it. Some of them he lingered on, looked at, thought about what he'd lost. But most of them he just threw into the flames.

He sensed, but didn't hear, Bozer's presence in the doorway a few times. He appreciated that Bozer lurked but didn't disturb him. As the pictures in the box dwindled, Mac felt a tightness in his throat growing. It was the feeling of wanting to cry, and even more so of having no intention of allowing that to happen. He remembered the feeling from the hospital after Lake Como.

There were some distinct differences though.

He sighed again. In the hospital, he had thought Nikki was a good person. He had thought he and Nikki had shared a love of the same country and a willingness to sacrifice for it. And he had thought that she had done so.

He supposed there was at least one similarity.

He'd been in pain then, too.

The difference in his pain between then and now was the source then had been loss. Now it was betrayal. His jaw clenched. The other difference was that then he'd broken down, and he was not going to do that now. He wouldn't have then, not in front of anyone anyway, but he'd been pretty full of medication he'd neither asked for, nor wanted, and that combined with everything else had lowered his defenses in a way he was going to file away.

He'd done extremely well in interrogation training. He'd have to revisit just exactly what it was that had made him lose control emotionally then. That wasn't something he could afford to have happen. It wasn't a weakness he planned on showing more than once, regardless of why.

He picked the last picture out of the box. He felt his resolve not to break down waver. It was one of his favorite pictures of him and Nikki. Or it had been anyway. They were lying on a lounge chair on the deck at the vineyard. Her hair was in a messy updo that he loved, her smile was soft. Before now, whenever he looked at that picture, he'd thought it was evidence that she had really loved him.

His eyes burned.

Now, it was evidence of how gifted a liar she was.

He blinked several times and swallowed hard.

_Goddamnit. _He probably wasn't going to be able to help breaking down. He sighed heavily. He was at least going to keep his shit together until after Bozer left for work.

"Mac?"

Mac shook his head, but his lips curled into an unwilling half smile. Of course Jack was here.

The playful exchange between Jack, Riley, and Bozer allowed Mac the moment he needed to get on top of his emotions. As Bozer saw himself out, Riley seemed to sense that Mac still needed a minute, and she busied herself away from the firepit for a minute. Jack came over and handed him a beer, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze. "You, uh, you doing all right there, pal?"

Mac took a swig of the beer, more to have something to do than because he was really in the mood for it. "I will be."

"Okay," Jack nodded. But the invitation was there if Mac wanted or needed to talk.

Mac didn't quite meet his eyes, but he couldn't avoid Riley's when she sat down and thanked him. Jack noticed the very genuine smile Mac offered her when he said, "You're welcome."

Riley hurried to assure him her thanks were genuine. Jack would have to explain a few things about Mac when he gave her a lift home later. Like for example that in some ways Mac was the most complicated human being on the planet, but in others, he couldn't be simpler. If he offered help, it came with no strings attached; if he said you're welcome he meant that just as surely. And if he considered you a friend, he'd lay down his life without thinking twice about it. He figured Ri should know that from the get go.

He might have even let Mac fill Riley in about Cairo but Thornton interrupted their little gathering. "Guys, Cairo can wait."

Jack's eyes stayed on Mac's face as Thornton filled them in. When the director said the words, "Folding up the tent," Mac paled about three shades. He recovered quickly when it became clear it was about a new cover for the organization. But Jack sensed Mac needed a tension breaker, so he did what he always did, and cracked a joke about the new name. "The Three Amigos."

Riley seemed to pick up on what Jack was doing because Jack knew she spoke fluent Spanish, but she said, "That means three guys."

"You should brush up on your Spanish," he teased, earning himself a knowing smirk from Mac. "My second choice? Thunder Stallions."

That got a short laugh out of Mac. Thunder Stallions was Jack's default name for everything. Then, Mac grew thoughtful, turning the pendant from Cairo between his fingers. "Phoenix," he said, only half aware that he'd spoken out loud, but when everyone's eyes turned to him, he felt it and looked up.

Jack offered him the moment he needed to gather his thoughts by saying, "We don't want to name our new super crew after a bird."

Mac gave a brief shake of his head. "Not just any bird. In ancient mythology, the

Phoenix rose from the ashes stronger than it ever was. That's us."

Jack liked how the color had returned to Mac's voice. Riley nodded. "I like it."

"Me, too," Thornton said with a nod.

Jack grinned at his partner. He raised his beer.

Riley caught on to the vibe immediately, solidifying her place on the team with her casual ability to read the guys. "To the Phoenix."

"Foundation," Mac added, hitting the neck of his beer bottle against Jack's, then Riley.

Thornton finally cracked a beer of her own. "So, a fresh start."

Mac nodded thoughtfully, taking a long pull off his beer. "Might be nice. Maybe the next place will be inside the city limits. Wouldn't hate cutting down on my commute."

The rest of the group laughed lightly. "That'd be real nice," Jack agreed.

Thornton took another sip of her own drink, and Mac couldn't help but think she looked odd with it in her hand. She'd never just come over casually like this before, never joined them by his fire pit. She'd certainly never sat down for a beer. She was much more a glass of champagne sort of person. "Mmm," she agreed. "Perhaps it will also include your ops team following the rules."

Mac raised an eyebrow at her and took another swig of beer. "We follow rules."

"And orders."

He should have known his 'misunderstanding' would get brought up at some point tonight since she was here. But everyone was in a pretty relaxed mood, all things considered, so he decided to try a tactic that worked pretty well on everyone in his life as far back as he could remember. The other eyebrow joined the first and he flashed half a dimpled smile. "Ma'am I have no idea what you're talking about."

Everyone laughed.

Including Thornton.

~ See you next time ~ 


End file.
